I was birdwatching the other day with a jolly Methodist minister who had only ever once been to a racecourse. Knowing nothing of the sport, in the first race he had backed an outsider called something like Holy Orders, purely on the name, and collected. He put most of his winnings on The Lord in the next. Alas, it came nowhere. ‘It was,’ he said, ‘the only time in my life I have been let down by The Lord.’
The Lord clearly hadn’t noticed either that last Saturday’s card at Newbury promised the best jumping fare this season, the Cheltenham Festival apart, and it was frosted off. It left me free to conclude the final chapter of a book about the Flat trainer Clive Brittain, which has been a joyful experience. As everybody keeps telling me, Clive and his wife Maureen are simply the nicest people in racing. They live for their horses and never say a bad word about anyone.
Their achievements are extraordinary. Clive was one of 13 children who supplemented the family income by helping local horse-dealers to break and sell ponies. He was then a stable lad to Sir Noel Murless for 23 years, during which time he never earned more than £17 a week. As Murless approached retirement, Clive set up on his own. Within a few years he was the first trainer in Newmarket to have more than a hundred horses. He has trained six British Classic winners and those of almost 50 Group and Grade One races and in doing so he broke the glass ceiling. Before then trainers were almost exclusively ex-Army men from good private schools, set up with a legacy.
A restless innovator, Clive was the first to build an equine swimming pool, the first, says former jockey Steve Cauthen, to use horse walkers.
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