Acknowledgements
"Owners, jockeys and
journalists, who have always found the master of Carlburg amongst the most
approachable of people, have always been encouraged to 'Call me Clive' and
throughout this book I have stuck to this habit. It is 'Clive' , not 'Brittain'
, you will meet in these pages.
EQUUS ZONE
Mystiko Jock Clive
Spring 1991 pre winning the 2000 Guineas
Giving Mystiko a pick of grass after working.
Notice how Jock and Clive stand well away from Mystiko
to ensure he doesn't feel crowded and can graze in peace
Introduction
"Are you there, baby?' 'Hello
big girl, are you waiting for me?' 'Good boy ... oh yes' 'There's
nothing to be frightened of'' ... 'Hello young lady, are you there
for me?'
"Want to see a man doing what he was destined to do,
doing what he is totally absorbed and happy doing? Watch Clive Brittain with
his horses at Carlburg Stables, Bury
Road, Newmarket.
"
Racehorses respond directly to a person's voice and gestures.
The tone of the voice especially. Opening communication and understanding
channels on all levels. Magic
How Clive communicated with a bunch of wild ponies, and took a few jobs
to bring in some pocket money.At the end of 1948 Clive went to see Herbert Blagrave for a job. He was a private trainer and he already had an apprentice. This was about the end of 1948 and he was full up. He said, "Try Noel Murless down the road" .
I saw the stable secretary first, a
Mr Cotterill, a great old character. He looked at me and said, "You'll be
too big" , and more or less turned me away. But I was never one for being
turned away and so I waited until Sir Noel came out. I said that Mr
Blagrave had sent me and that I wanted a job as an apprentice jockey and
he took me on for a month's trial. "
"It was a moment that determined
the shape of Clive's life. The month's trial developed into a relationship of
mutual respect that was to last, apart from Clive's two years of National
Service in the Army, for the next 23 years. Until Sir Noel Murless began
thinking of retirement and Clive set up on his own, he spent those 23 years
handling some of the best animals in the country, horses like Petite Etoile,
and Crepello, Aurelius and St Paddy, Royal Palace and Busted. And if that was
why Clive later knew how to get the best out of the best when he handled
Classic contenders at Carlburg, he made his own contribution too in the Murless
yard, dealing with the awkward squad.
CHAPTER ONE: 1948
A
Horseman's beginning
"Some of the other kids on the estate would try it
and then chicken out but I was determined ...
"Clive started work as an
apprentice with Sir Noel Murless. pages 17 - 21"Some of the other
kids on the estate would try it and then chicken out but I was determined ...
""Calne, Wiltshire. The little scrap who arrived on December 15 1933
and who lived his early years at 9, Priestley Grove, Calne, enjoyed a family life typical of thecountryside
at the time: busy, companionably and shorne of luxury, although the big family
usually managed, somehow or other, to make ends meet."
How Clive communicated with a bunch
of wild ponies, and took a few jobs to bring in some
pocket money. "At the end of 1948 Clive went to see
Herbert Blagrave for a job. He was a private trainer and he already had an
apprentice. This was about the end of 1948 and he was full up. He said,
"Try Noel Murless down the road" .
"I saw the stable secretary first, a
Mr Cotterill, a great old character. He looked at me and said, "You'll be
too big" , and more or less turned me away. But I was never one for being
turned away and so I waited until Sir Noel came out. I said that Mr
Blagrave had sent me and that I wanted a job as an apprentice jockey and
he took me on for a month's trial. "
"It was a moment that determined
the shape of Clive's life. The month's trial developed into a relationship of
mutual respect that was to last, apart from Clive's two years of National
Service in the Army, for the next 23 years. Until Sir Noel Murless began
thinking of retirement and Clive set up on his own, he spent those 23 years
handling some of the best animals in the country, horses like Petite Etoile,
and Crepello, Aurelius and St Paddy, Royal Palace and Busted. And if that was
why Clive later knew how to get the best out of the best when he handled
Classic contenders at Carlburg, he made his own contribution too in the Murless
yard, dealing with the awkward squad.
CHAPTER TWO: 1948 - 1972
The Murless
Years
"If you
didn't say 'Good morning' you would get a boot up your arse. And if it wasn't a
good morning you'd get a boot up the arse for saying so. " Mick
Leaman, fellow Murless apprentice
" Thy were different times. In 23 years with Sir Noel Murless, Clive Brittain moved from
Beckhampton to Newmarket with
Sir Noel Murless and all his horses, the lot in one massive move, pages 23 -
38.
Key Fact
"Clive
served his 7 year apprenticeship with Sir Noel
Murless plus a further 16 years.
Clive was in the
right place with the right man for 23 years. "They were different
times. In 23 years with Sir Noel Murless, as the great trainer was to become
(he acquired his knighthood after Clive had left to set up on his own)
Clive Brittain was never addressed as 'Clive' or even by his surname.
When he spoke to him, Murless called him Calne because Calne in
Wiltshire was was where Clive came from. It was ' Calne, take this one back to
the yard' or 'Calne, drop in behind and move upsides at the two -furlong marker
. It was not a lack of civility on Murless's part - theirs was a relationship
built on mutual respect. It was just the way things were in a more
forelock-tugging age. And it could have been worse ... there was another lad in
the yard who was only ever addressed as 'Skin the Goat'
"Sir Noel
Murless had just taken over at Beckhampton from Fred Darling and when I first
went to Beckhampton there were seven horses there who were savages.
Red-carded. You weren't allowed to go in with them unless there was
someone with you. Within three years Sir Noel had changed the system and
brought in a more feeling regime. The savage horses disappeared. It was a great
lesson. At evening stables they were held with three rack chains. One from the
hay net to the head collar and one each side, otherwise they would have ripped
you to pieces. There only defence was to bite you or kick you. Sir Noel got rid
of those ideas. Seeing the way horses were treated I realised, just as I had
with the ponies, that you don't beat them. A lot of the things he did I had
already worked out for myself.
"NOEL
MURLESS was a great boss to work for and to be absolutely honest we had a very
good lifestyle. Maureen was his secretary. I worked in the yards looking after
the difficult horses. We has a (rent and rates free) bungalow at Warren Place and we
were very happy. It wasn't until Lady Murless started talking about Sir Noel
retiring that the idea of training came up at all. After 23 years it was a
question of who else could I work for? I knew his mind inside out. I knew him
and trusted him and he obviously had great trust in me, although I was never
head man. He was a very loyal man and the head men he had did their job. My job
was dealing with the awkward horses, riding the awkward ones, breaking the
yearlings. We all had our place in the system. '
Sir Noel was a
tremendous thinker about the animal's condition and wellbeing and noticed
everything. I can remember he would say at evening stables, "That
horse was very nervous with you this morning" . "We never had a big
conversation. He called me "Calne" because that was where I came
from. It was an "Evening Calne". "Evening sir" , "yes,
sir" kind of relationship. I would say something like "This horse
doesn't like going through the trees on the way to the gallop" and it was
about getting the horses to the bottom of the gallop with as little stress as
possible.
"For
lads in those days it was pretty spartan. We lived in big rooms like barracks.
In the winter they were running with condensation. There was no heating but you
had a bed and clean sheets for the bed once a week.. We were always pretty well
fed in the canteen run by Mrs Barclay, she was a very kind woman and
we got good wholesome food. "
"Clives's
friend and long time feed man Mick Learman, whom he tempted back into racing
after 16 years in Clark's shoe factory when he started up, was a good boxer. We
tend to forget thev physical stature of many of the lads in stables in those
days. Mick won several boxing titles and was beaten in the final one year in
the stable lads' championship - an event that was once a mainstay of the
racing year but finally petered out at the end of the 1990's, reflecting
perhaps not just the growing number of lasses working in yards but an
altogether less macho approach in racing yards.
"Mind you ,
says Mick, it was worse when Fred Darling was still at Beckhampton. He may have
six Derby winners "but he was tough with the horses and could be a mean
little man, there was a ten o'clock curfew for the lads and if they were in
after that he'd be there the other side of the gate waiting for them with a
bullwhip. "
"Clive
says: " Mick's been my mainstay. The best in Newmarket. I don't have to worry about it.
His feedhouse is always absolutely immaculate. He's head and shoulders above
anyone else in Newmarket
for feeding horses. Nobody could look after a horse better than Mick does. Mind
you, he's cost me a fortune. He always wants the best for his horses. "
"Two of the
trickier stars Clive had to deal with were AURELIUS and ST PADDY, later the sire of one of Clive's outstanding international winners. As his protege was later to do with PEBBLES, Murless used geldings as companions and lead horses. The 1960 Derby winner ST PADDY, for example was a tearaway but there was a secret to dealing with him: "You could hold ST PADDY in a canter if you kept his head on the quarters of a big old mate of his called Sunny Way. ST PADDY's forelegs would go between Sunny Way's back ones. It looked dreadful but they never touched each other. After 100 yards or so of that St Paddy would settle pretty well. But he even ran away with Lester, which took a bit of doing. "
"As for
AURELIUS, the 1961 St Leger winner, he was a savage with a capital S. There was
no point hitting him. That was how he turned savage in the first place. As was
CREPELLO who in his only two outings as a three-year-old in 1957, won the 2,000
Guineas and the Derby "CREPELLO was
a tremendous colt, really powerful behind the saddle, which was the
reason he eventually broke down. He had an unbelievable blend if speed and
stamina, which meant he was never extended at home. I couldn't name a horse
today that might have beaten him. Among the fillies Petite Etoile was a tough
mare, more like a colt in many ways. She had a strong personality with a bit of
a temperament - she broke her lead rein on more than one occasion.
I rode a lot of Sir Noel's good horses, most of them probably, and learned a
lot about the character of horses. Even now you see a lot of the
characteristics from the family lines. For instance, if a CREPELLO throws
a wobbly you are forewarned. "
"During my
years at Warren Place
I never earned more than £17 a week but I set myself an income of £5,000 a year
by backing our good horses in top races. We made a decent living - not a
fortune but enough always to run a nice car and to have good holidays.
"I was
never a big gambler in the Barry
Hills mode. I set out to
win £5,000 a year and stop. I've always believed the lad who has a punt has an
interest. It wasn't hurting anybody. You wouldn't do anything to harm or stop a
horse. It wasn't in those days a matter of what wasn't going to win but what
was going to win. It wouldn't do any damage to the price of the horse. Lads
were probably then getting £15 to £20 a week as wages.
"With
common sense you couldn't help making money on the post odds. You
couldn't help backing winners when you worked for Sir Noel. I always backed
horses to win. If I won £200 I would bank £175 and start again with £25. My
first rule was never to stake more than I could afford to lose.
"Two I
particularly remember Altesse Royal at 33-1 and Caergwrle at 50-1. We had
some very good fillies at the time of Altesse Royal but I always felt she would
be the best. She had a lot of nervous energy. She was pacemaker to the others
but she never dropped away. It always stuck in my mind that she would be the
one. She won the £1,000 Guineas
the year Magic Flute would sit behind Altesse Royale and then come with a run
and always looked to be her master. But Altesse Royal never dropped her head. I
took 33-1 for the Oaks and I won a few quid. It gave me that bit of a nest egg.
It wasn't any huge wodge or anything, it was hundreds rather than thousands.
'Murless horses. I concentrated on their home work. I never thought of myself
as a gambler when I backed his horses - more of an investor. They were nearly
all good-class animals and they were always trying. I made most of the money in
Classic races at anti-post odds. You couldn't help backing winners when you worked for Sir Noel.
Newmarket 1991
CHAPTER THREE: 1972
Pegasus Days
"He didn't have any legacy to
set him up. He's done it his way and done it from the bottom.
He didn't take anyone's
blueprint - he made his own. He follows his instincts. " Willie Carson on
Clive.
Clive was 39 years old by then, he
was a brilliant kaleidoscope illuminator for yearlings and
two - year - olds bred and
prepared each and every one for superstardom on the global, horseracing stage.
That is if saved from being frightened to death beforehand by the bloodhorse
illiterate ... Especially on the public highway. Clive's perspective on starting out as a trainer Clive Sketches' in his focus on a myriad of owners.
"It never sunk in until Lady
Murless was talking about Sir Noel's retirement but then I thought for 23
years he had been a good gov'nor and I couldn't see myself having the same
relationship with anybody else.
"We talked about it. I made a
few inquiries and found that Pegasus was coming on the market. Jack Watts had
moved to train in the north and it had been left empty and deteriorating. I
went to see Chris Bakewell, who had it in trust for the family, and we agreed a
three-year lease. When we went in, the lofts were full of chickens, the paint
was peeling: the place had been let go.
Clive recalls:
"Willie Carson had moved into a
new house at the end of the garden and he introduced me to Mr Gulrajani, an
Indian banker with a lot of horses. Willie got him to send me a couple of
horses and they were just platers. I started to train them.
"Pandit Gulrajani was the owner
of the first winner Clive trained, VEDVYAS at Doncaster
just ten days into the new season. There was a field of 25 for the Tuxford
Maiden Stakes on April 1st 1972.
"It was a new adventure going to
the races with the first horse I thought had a chance. VEDVYAS had been running
in sellers the previous year. An apprentice, ROBERT YOUNG, had been riding him
at exercise and the horse worked better for him than for other jockeys who rode
out for me at the time. I thought VEDVYAS would win. I told
the kid to ride him like he rode him work and not to pressure him much, not to
go for the stick. Afterwards Frankie Durr (who finished third in the race on
RIO D'OR) told me what a good race the kid had ridden. He asked if I had told
him to sit quiet and when I told him I had, he said: If he had moved he
would have been beaten.
" VEDVYAS, carrying 8st 7lb,
just got up on the line under his apprentice rider ROBERT YOUNG beating
MERCHANT OF VENICE, ridden by DUNCAN KIETH. Punters knew very little about C.E.
Brittain, Newmarket'
and VEDVYAS was allowed to start at 33-1, the first of a series of
long-priced winners that were to decorate Clive's career. His winners share of
the prize-money was £616.60.
"Ten day's later
VEDVYAS won the much more important BP Mile Handicap at Aintree. He
turned out to be quite a useful performer and at 50-1 in the 35-runner
Cambridgeshire at Newmarket on September 30,
this time ridden by lightweight DES CULLEN, he was beaten only a head and a
nose in a photo- finish behind NEGUS (PHILIP WALDRON) and ROY BRIDGE
(MICHAEL KETTLE). That was his best performance. CLIVE says CULLEN, was
one of WILLIE CARSON'S most feared riders in a finish.
Clive says "You've got to take
the animal into consideration. They don't come out of their boxes every day in
the same frame of mind. They (the racehorses) are affected by different
ground, by left-handed or right-handed courses, by different distances, and
these captains of industry don't always appreciate that. Fellow trainer
Sir Mark Prescott, who took over officially from Jack Waugh at Heath House just
two years before the Brittain's opened up at Pegasus Stables, says that, apart
from his talents as a horseman , Clive's good nature enables him to cope with
owners that other were glad to see leave. 'His speciality was that he could
manage difficult 'owners. '
CHAPTER FOUR: 1970 - 1972
Enter Marcos Lemos
"They were dreadful bullies -
horrible horrible people. People look back now through rose-tinted glasses and
say what great horsemen they were? Well were they? Sir Mark Prescott on Newmarket in 1972.
SIR MARK PRESCOTT HAS THIS TO
SAY:
"Newmarket was very different in 1972. It was
for many at the lower end of racing a grim and often brutal place. Sir Mark
Prescott, a man with a true feel for his local community, remembers it clearly
at Heath House: 'Newmarket
was a very, very different place then. I started officially in 1970. At
that time there were 35 trainers in Newmarket
and 850 horses Now there are 81 trainers and 2,500 horses.(2012)
Pages 51 - 61.
"Everywhere was run-down. The
owners could no longer afford to keep up the big studs as they had done and
until the Arabs came on the scene and re did them they were pretty tired. I was
unbelievably lucky to be given the chance to train here but it was all falling
down.
Whether it was the war, whether that
had something psychologically to do with it of whether it was entirely
financial I don't know but it had a run-down feel about it. Newmarket was
tired.
"The lads' accommodation was
appalling. They were paid a pittance. Single lads serving a seven year
apprenticed then. There were some great horsemen but there was an
underclass of those men who were absolutely no good and they were allowed to
get away with murder. It took a crisis to change that culture, the stable lads'
strike of of 1975.
"The strike was very cathartic.
In retrospect it was a ghastly, ghastly time. But it was very good because the
owners realised they'd got to pay a proper rate for having horses
trained.
"One of the problems was the
lack of graduated wage structure in British racing. In many yards a
man with 20 years' experience was getting no more than a 16-year-old starter,
so the job tended to attract gamblers and drifters.
"That was the Newmarket in which Clive set out as a trainer.
But perhaps in those circumstances there was some advantage in being a
trainer who had spent 23 years as a lad in someone else's
yard.
JMC Comment: Long outdated British political and horseracing government imposters at large. Rip off all true horsemen, using bloodhorse illiterate tactics bringing British horseracing to its knees, left ongoing over 6 decades to get worse and worse. Government Power Abuse: Abusing trainers, and their teams, their owners, and horses every which way in an evil government wooden horse perspective.
Clive had a major task to bring
Pegasus House and Stables back to life before it was ready to house
horses in training at work.
BHA do not take the
horses into consideration at all, whilst pretending to regulate British
horseracing . The methods government use to run this sport are all
aimed to support hefty financial government gain. No matter at whose
expense, in secret. Secret laws popped in to cover the tracks of evil politicians and lawyers.
These governments show this to
be the case both in Britain
and in India (Richard
Hughes) and (Martin Dwyer) both caught up unjustly when riding, competing in India. Made out
to be crook's, when they are nothing of the sort. Both proven top global Group
1 horsemen. Treated, punished like criminals. Noted never any government public
apologies for the libel and slander tactics governments use.
These government parties focus
on horses, cattle, sheep and chicken all reared and slaughterhouse
bound. End of story. What sufferance inflicted upon them whilst they are
alive, matters not one jot to any of them. A financial means to launder
huge amounts of other people's money at the animal's expense.
And we are fool enough to allow this
long outdated evil political practice to continue on.
British governments
are using monies they have stolen and are stealing from the British Equus Zone
of horseracing every day, left on going over 6 decades.
CHAPTER FIVE: 1970 - 1975
Lucky to be alive
"It was soon clear that I
was looking more for the owner - breeder and mostly keeping clear of the
gambling types. "
"In the summer of 1973, midway through his second season and with
crucial horse sales about to take place. Clive was in a car crash that could
easily have killed him. - Clive Sketches' in the focus of his car crash, Newark hospital. Followed by his move to the Addenbrooke hospital in Cambridge. And then home.
"While recuperating,
Clive missed two crucial sales. But the Lemos connection had been
established and the 1975 season with two yards. To add to Clive's leasing
Pegasus premises, Captain Lemos had purchased from TV rentals tycoon David
Robinson the fine old Carlburg yard off the Bury Road, which Clive was later to buy from
him. Of the 75 horses the Brittain's were now handling, 32 belonging to the
ship owner. Soon Clive was the first Newmarket trainer with
100 horses on the Heath and he built up at one stage to 140, although numbers
are down nowadays to a more manageable 60. Clive is too much a hands on trainer
to be handling larger numbers than that in his seventies and he doesn't believe
in having an assistant trainer to spread the workload: saying "You can have an assistant who
won't think the same as me?"
JMC Comment: The key ingredient Clive's Mind-Set.
Terimon and Tony
CHAPTER SIX:
RADETZY: A horse with a mind of his own
"It doesn't happen to everybody - a dead heat between two of yours at Royal Ascot and then you loose it in the stewards' room .
"Training and riding racehorses is often made to sound very easy but horses are not machines and Clive's reputation was built initially on his ability to cope with the difficult ones, the 'clever' horses with minds of their own . Philip Robinson, his long-time jockey, says: "He gets a great deal of pleasure out of the awkward horses, trying to find the key to them. A lot of horses show ability but don't come up with it on the racecourse. That's one of his real pleasures in life. Allowing a racehorse to find himself, and to gradually every day build that racehorses confidence, and spirit to enjoy. The only true way of training a racehorse. There are no short cuts.
Foals, yearlings, two year olds ...
Babies, toddlers, young kids just the same applies ...
Not telling the young ones what to do, but showing the young ones how to do, upsides them together with them, every step of the way.
As Monty Roberts the American horseman a friend of our Queen Elizabeth pointed out recently: "Women by nature are nurturers' .... protectors. "
This troubled world, and all life within it, is in dire need of the right sort of healing. The news on BBC1 February 14th showing pictures of the grave yard where a tree had fallen in a storm, breaking the tomb stone marking Florence Nightingales grave. Florence Nightingale after leaving school, formed a team of nurses from her school pals, going out to the front line during the Crimea War. When they got there they had a tough time. Told by the Army that they already had a very good hospital. When shown this hospital, it was nothing of the sort. It was a dungeon full of dead and dying men. Horrific.
Florence Nightingale biography | British Nurse Reformed Medical Care
Though she spent much of her
life housebound with illness, she campaigned for reforms in
nursing and was a vocal proponent of sanitation practices. In the Crimea,
Nightingale was able to get officers to accept her and her band of
nurses. She soon became legendary as a compassionate
nurse, and was ...
More »
Nightingale Goes to the Crimean War:
In 1853, Florence Nightingale became the director of a small charitable hospital in London. It gave her a chance to use not only her nurse's training but her ability at organization and administration. When Britain went to war against Russia, Nightingale, through the intercession of a British official she knew, was invited to travel to the Crimea. She brought along 38 nurses. In November 1854 Nightingale and her party arrived in Constantinople, and discovered appalling conditions at the British Army hospital at Scutari.
Nightingale Becames "The Lady With the Lamp":
In the Crimea, Nightingale was able to get officers to accept her and her band of nurses. However, the prevailing attitude of the time was that common soldiers were of lower classes and did not deserve comfort or proper medical attention. Nightingale struggled to change that archaic attitude, and with funds raised through a campaign with the London Times, she was able to provide medical supplies to the wounded troops.
These Florence Nightingale Quotes Show Us the Path of Kindness
