re:Dingle Races . Notice of a forthcoming Disciplinary Panel hearing.

I presume they'll be searching through You-Tube

Fadhb Ar Bith won a seven-furlong handicap at Carlisle for the trainer in July 2010 but has not been seen since under Rules.

harris has long since been involved with that flapping crew in derry/donegal..their operation i was told was mainly funded by one bloke who had a big win on the uk lottery...surprised the stipes failed to notice another flapping/track regular of this partnership, liberty seeker...a regular in uk sellers, and this easy to spot white faced chestnut has run in at least one and maybe more dingle derbys of recent vintage....then again whats the difference between the crime of illegal racing in this case and "ignorant/innocent chemical enhancement a la the royal trainer"..... the infamous autobiography of barry brogan was poo pooed by the establishment at the time...in fact his tales especially about the time when he was about to blow the whistle if not allowed his licence, painted an unfavourable cosy cartel picture of the powers that be, that was in the 70s, 40 odd years later nothing has changed.


forget about reading crap biographies of current jockeys, airbrushing publications....go to the trouble of getting brogans book and i promise you will find it compelling reading.

And some would have you believe keen leader that we're all paranoid and deluded.

I'd love to get hold of Brogans book but I'd say it would be virtually impossible to track down.

The whole of racing poo poohed Dermot Browne's allegations and dismissed him as a nutter with an axe to grind, he might have been prone to exaggeration but you better believe it that a lot of what he had to say had plenty of bases in truth, but it was so much easier to ridicule the guy and save face and give the impression all is fine in the rose garden of thorns!.

2009

Former professional jockey Tyrone Williams, who rode over 700 winners on the track, including the Tote Ebor at York, and a host of other major races, relinquished his licence, to compete in horse and pony racing, won his first race at Dingle on Fergie's Boy owned and trained in Derry by Gerard Faulkner, railing well throughout to win in a common canter

Theres copies available on Amazon for about a score

The ALIVE AND KICKING; INTERVIEW from The Racing Post. racingpost.com

Neil Morrice catches up with Barry Brogan, former jump jockey, alcoholic and jailbird, and now leading a life transformed as a top trainer in Malaysia

THE Swinging Sixties had reached their mind-blowing peak when Barry Brogan burst on to the jumping scene as No. 1 jockey to Ken Oliver and then to Fulke Walwyn, riding such charismatic horses as Flyingbolt, Even Keel, The Dikler and Charlie Potheen. The ensuing years have told an astonishing tale of self-belief triumphing over adversity, as the man from County Meath has  emerged from a path of self-destruction to become a leading trainer in the Far East.

Brogan's tortured times fighting alcoholism and an addiction to gambling, as well as coping with the ravaging effects of four separate jail stretches, were left behind when he emigrated to train winners in Australia before moving to Malaysia, where at Selangor racecourse he orchestrates the biggest training operation and has never been out of the top three in a seven-year period.


However, he then had to summon up the courage and determination to recover from a riding accident that threatened to put him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

Despite a pronounced limp, Brogan, 61, looks somewhat younger than his age. There still remains a sparkle in his eyes that might have gone a long way to affording Brogan the 'pretty boy' tag of the weighing room four decades ago.

Such natural charms comfortably lent themselves to temptation in that free-spirited, liberal period when Brogan both rode for Oliver and assisted the trainer's wife Rhona in preparing the second most powerful team in the north, then - and even more demonstrably - in his two-and-a-half-year spell as first jockey to Walwyn in Lambourn.

As a dual amateur champion in Ireland, Brogan had ridden for many of the top trainers, including Tom Dreaper, and he recalls: "I rode Arkle on the gallops several times and, when Ken Oliver employed me at Hawick, I partnered Flyingbolt to his last career win at Haydock. I also rode Red Rum in a couple of races.

"For all Arkle's brilliance, I felt Flyingbolt was the better horse. If Pat Taaffe was alive, he'd tell you the same."

Brogan won 27 races on the enigmatic Even Keel, trained by Oliver, and remembers: "He was a headstrong  devil, a freak of a horse who was a horrible ride as he wouldn't bend his head back. It meant he took liberties with some of the fences, but his talent was awesome."

In 1970, Brogan's first wife Mary (now trainer Mary Hambro) received an important telephone call. Brogan says: "She got a call from Fulke Walwyn who asked if I would ride The Dikler in a two-and-a-half-mile chase at Cheltenham. The Dikler pulverised his rivals - it was the ride that led to me getting a retainer at Saxon House that lasted two and a half years. My life in England was fantastic. I loved the people and the place.

"Fulke was a lovely man and the best boss I ever rode for. He was very conscientious and his bark was worse than his bite. The Dikler was a massive horse and on one occasion he cocked his jaw and galloped off with me into the mist on the Downs, but I managed to restrain him. He was a good horse but didn't have the class of Arkle and Flyingbolt."

Accompanying his triumphs in the saddle was a growing attraction to alcohol, while he freely admits he was prone to backing horses, and not always those he was riding himself.

He explains: "When I look back, I just don't know how I came through. I had a lot of fun with alcohol as well as a lot of heartache. I regularly had blackouts and had to dry out in hospitals all over England, Ireland and the West Indies . .

"I was pushed to the brink, but unlike a couple of jockeys I knew, such as poor Johnny Lehane, I never thought about committing suicide.

The amount I drank was staggering and would have made George Best look like a teetotaller."

Gambling had also entered his life.

"I was betting on everything - cards, dogs, horses - and I was favourite mad. I was good friends with bookmaker John Banks and I owed the local bookie in Lambourn more than I could afford to pay him back."

During that time, Walwyn had been staunchly loyal to Brogan and contacted him in a drying-out clinic.

"Fulke asked me what I was going to do about the Cheltenham Festival of 1973 and I told him 'no'. I watched that Gold Cup on television and was choked when Ron Barry got The Dikler up to beat Pendil by a short head.

"Fulke made me promise not to ride any more that season, as there were only a couple of months left, but Alan Jarvis offered me one he said would win at Ludlow, and I took the ride.

After riding work at Saxon House the next day the boss sacked me." THINGS then went from bad to worse for Brogan, as he admits. "I sank to my lowest point when found guilty of defrauding banks of between six and seven thousand pounds of a trainer's money, for which I copped a three-year stretch.

The first three months in an Edinburgh prison really sobered me up mentally. Altogether, I spent 14 months and three weeks inside, including in Wormwood Scrubs It was the turning point in my life."

In 1984, with his riding career in tatters 

He recalls: "I walked into Harrods, bought a return ticket to Sydney and never went back to Britain." He visited the racetracks of Sydney and found a job with fellow Irishman and trainer Paul Cave as a track rider and breaking-in horses.

He explains: "I worked very hard and in 1989 applied for a licence to train. I told the Australian Jockey Club my life story. The chairman seemed to like me but someone else in the hierarchy didn't, which sparked a move from Sydney to Kembla Grange, a provincial track, where I trained under somebody else's name.

"That person was Des Lake, the former jockey who'd ridden Prince Tenderfoot and Bold Lad, champion two-year-olds for PJ Prendergast.

They called him 'Dashing Des' and he was as mad as a hatter. I was registered with the AJC as a supervisor and had 35 horses, but after eight years that door closed and I was back to square one."

The gambling side of his complicated mind surfaced to assist his next move. For this, Brogan spun a coin to decide where he went. He says: "It was either heads Melbourne or tails Brisbane, and it came down heads. So I was off to Melbourne with three horses and three cats.

"I resumed the trackwork there and met an Irishman called Michael Walsh, whose father owned a restaurant near the Curragh called The Red House. Michael managed to get me a meeting with Bruce Gadsen, chairman of the Victoria Racing Club Racing  and that way I got a 'B' licence that enabled me to run horses at picnic meetings, which consist of regulated amateur Flat races. That was a leg inside the door. I trained half a dozen winners, applied for my full licence and got it straight away. I'm pleased to say that I've never been inside the stewards' room since."

Brogan's next move, to Malaysia in 2001, saw him quickly establish himself as a leading light among the local trainers, and the following year he was the top money-earner. He continued riding trackwork, only for disaster to strike.

"One morning at Ipoh racecourse I was on an old horse called Narcissus, who I loved," he says. "We'd cantered one lap on the sand when he suddenly had a massive heart attack and died. I went out over his neck and fractured my spinal cord spinal cord, the part of the nervous system occupying the hollow interior (vertebral canal) of the series of vertebrae that form the spinal column in two places. I could feel my head, but not my body, and I couldn't talk. I spent the next year - six months in intensive care - flat on my back in hospital looking at the ceiling. It was the same accident as the actor Christopher Reeve suffered.

"I could move one toe, and the Chinese doctor said I could take a chance on an operation to move my voice box. What could I do? I was paralysed and I said go ahead. The doctor slit my throat and moved the voice box, and when I came round, the first thing I remember was that I could talk. I underwent physio physio
Noun

1. short for physiotherapy

2. pl physios short for physiotherapist  every day to stimulate feeling back into my body, and through it all my wife Robyn was a rock, spending each night with me but going back to supervise the horses in the day. The training operation therefore continued unabated and gradually I regained feeling in 50 per cent of my body."

Brogan is happier than ever in his new life and has no thoughts of moving on. When attending his mother's funeral this year it was his first visit to Ireland for a quarter of a century. Of his Malaysian set-up, he says: "I have 84 boxes at Selangor and employ 40 people, while we also use two other tracks, Ipoh and Penang.

"I've trained more than 250 winners here. I enjoy the quality of life and can say I came here with a small amount of finance but now have a big stable, and own 60 of the 80 in it myself. We have one race worth 1.5m ringit pounds 300,000 and another six worth 1m pounds 200,000.

"There are different values in my life now, and I feel lucky to be alive.

How I came out of what happened to me I'll never know."

'I could feel my head but not my body, and I couldn't talk. I spent the next year flat on my back in hospital'

'I just don't know how I came through. The amount I drank would have made George Best look like at eetotaller'

CAPTION(S):

Barry Brogan and The Dikler at the last in the 1972 Gold Cup, with winner Glencaraig Lady (right) on his tail; Former jump jockey Barry Brogan has overcome years of adversity, much of it self-inflicted, to carve outto make or get by cutting, or as if by cutting; to cut out.
- Shak.

See also: Carve
..... Click the link for more information. a hugely successful career as a trainer in Malaysia

A very bold gamble that came unstuck

by Brian Lee, Western Mail
Jul 28 2009



SECRET DANCER, trained by Alan Jones at Coedkernew near Castleton, and ridden by Welsh jockey Christian Williams, recently brought off a real old-fashioned gamble when winning at Uttoxeter after being backed from 40-1 to 9-2.

Another huge Welsh gamble took place about 30 years ago but without the same happy ending for those involved.

Back in April 1979, I revealed in the Western Mail that former leading Irish National Hunt jockey Barry Brogan had fallen on hard times and was working as a stable lad in a small South Wales permit holder’s yard.

Brogan had been first stable jockey to the legendary Welsh trainer Fulke Walwyn and during his race riding career had many major successes.

But with the success came the heartbreaks and the highly-strung Brogan, beset by weight and a drink problem, found that owners and trainers were no longer requiring his services. Found guilty of offences under the Rules of Racing when he failed to fulfil three riding engagements in 1976, Brogan’s path was a downward one from then on.

I reported then that Brogan was living in the hope that the Jockey Club would renew his licence and that in the meantime he was mucking out the stables of permit holder John Williams in Dinas Powis.

But Brogan, who had at one time been assistant trainer to another legendary figure Tommy Dreaper, was doing a lot more than mucking out. He had in fact been brought over from Ireland by South Wales businessman Peter Murphy to train a horse with the purpose of bringing off a huge gambling coup.

Murphy told me he had first met Brogan when on a trip to Ireland to buy greyhounds.

Anyway, Murphy and Williams were supported by another well-known racetrack character lan Davies, and all three, who incidentally I knew very well, were betting partners at various race meetings and point-to-points.

Mount Shasta, the horse Brogan had bought for them for the purpose of the coup, was reported to have set them back between £5,000 and £7,000.

Brogan, who was staying at Murphy’s home at the time, put his knowledge of training horses to good use slowly bringing the little horse to form.

And to see how good Mount Shasta really was Williams got hold of another horse, Splendid Again, a winner of three hurdles races when trained by Jenny Pitman, and who had once been owned by Murphy.

The trial gallop told them all they needed to know and the horse was entered for a selling hurdle race at Devon & Exeter on the Whit-Monday.

On the morning of the race, teams of money handlers set off for the Midlands with bundles of money which was to be placed as late as possible in betting shops in Coventry, Birmingham and Leicester. The plan being to make sure the money did not get back to the track as this would have shortened the odds.

However, when the betting opened on the racecourse, Mount Shasta, who had never been at shorter odds than 33-1 in previous races such was his poor form, opened up at just 4-1! The race was run in a torrential downpour and Mount Shasta, with 21-year-old claimer Ken Dorsett aboard, was travelling really well and in a handy position six flights from home when it suddenly ran out.

After the race, the stewards interviewed the horses’ connections and recorded their explanation that a pin in the bridle had snapped. Some reports claim that as much as £20,000 had been bet on the horse and it was said that had Mount Shasta won Murphy, Williams and Davies would have been some £200,000 richer. Betting shop syndicate bookmakers Coral and William Hill later admitted to having taken a lot of money for the horse in the morning and sending it back to the track which accounted for the horse’s ridiculous short price. Clearly, someone had let the cat out of the bag. A dejected Barry Brogan told The Sporting Life’s Brian Radford: “I never had a shilling on the horse. It was my job to train and place it. And it was never blatantly stopped. I have finished in the yard, and I have nothing more to do with them. I bought the horse and I worked hard on it. I loved the little horse. He was absolutely right on the day, but the bridle snapped and ruined everything. It’s the first time a bridle has snapped with me in all my career. The horse was pulling hard and that can be the only explanation.”


Read More http://www.walesonline.co.uk/2009/07/28/a-very-bold-gamble-that-came-unstuck-91466-24251152/#ixzz1mM83bKIO

Annaglog I think you have mentioned in the past you were from Co Louth.

The Brogan's were from Balrath Cross in nearby Meath, He had a brother Peter who also became a jockey in England. Both them went to school in the Christian Brothers Drogheda. Their parents were Jimmy and Betty who trained and bred a few horses.

There was another jockey in that era that was Barry's drinking companion in the Drogheda area, his name was Pat Black from Bettystown who met Barry at school in nearby Drogheda. Pat was stable jockey to the late Bunny Cox at Dundalk .Pat won the Galway Hurdle for Bunny on Highway View owned by the famous Down GAA man Charlie Carr whose colours were the Down colours. After that Pat bought a large house on the  Ardee Road in Dundalk and he started an affair with Lady Jane Cameron (Earl of Harrington's daughter who was at the time married to Tony Cameron from Dowth who was a permit holder)
The affair was the talk of racing at the time and shortly afterwards she was killed in a car accident aged 31 in 1974, Pat took to the drink big time and died a short time later, all in all the Brogan/Black friendship ended in tragedy for both.

I think you are right Wildman about Jimmy, Betty was a widow for a long time

From a couple of years ago


Byline: Rodney Masters

THE question must have been asked a thousand times, with never a conclusive answer. Most people aged over 40 with an interest in racing will have asked it at least once. Whatever happened to Barry Brogan?

They remember him as the naturally gifted and utterly fearless jump jockey whose outwardly enviable lifestyle was blown asunder by vodka addiction, gambling that saw him lose £250,000 inside six months, and shady associates who turned unpleasant when he most needed friends.

Brogan's story is a salutary lesson for all jockeys that self-discipline is essential.

Little or nothing has been heard of Brogan since he served 14 months and three weeks in jail in 1979-80 for deception and theft. At around the same time, he was warned off by the Jockey Club for three years.

He is now 55. A non-gambler, teetotal, and far distanced from trouble. Grateful for a second chance in life, and a second chance in racing. He jigsawed the shattered pieces together, with loving assistance from second wife Robyn, an Australian dressage tutor, and their teenage daughter.

The Brogan of today is a much-changed character from the one last seen in Britain and Ireland 20 years ago. He is currently leading the trainers' championship in Malaysia, and his 27-strong stable at Ipoh racecourse - one of the country's three tracks - is expanding by the day, as he has landed several touches for owners.

Building on that success will, he hopes, eventually springboard a training career in Britain. His foremost desire is to see out his working life back on the beat where he was once dominant as a jockey. It is understood the Jockey Club would not find any hoops to hinder that ambition.

In the meantime, he is seeking an invitation to compete in one of the celebrity races. In anticipation, he keeps himself at full readiness, riding up to four lots a day, and he can do 11 stone.

Talking to Brogan, it becomes apparent the punishment for his misdeeds stretched far beyond those 445 dark days slopping out in Edinburgh and Gloucester prisons.

"I remember vividly every waking hour I served in jail," he says. "A prison sentence certainly did for me what it was meant to do.

"When released, I vowed I'd never return. I haven't. I've stayed on the rails and worked my socks off to get something out of my life; I've not had an idle day since.

"When I came out of jail, Henry Oliver kindly gave me a job at his stable near Wolverhampton. Most other former friends distanced themselves; they'd cross the street to avoid me. I found it terribly difficult to handle that rejection. It had been so different when I'd been going well as a jockey.

"I knew I'd have to get as far away as possible. That's why, after 18 months, I went to Australia. Sometimes that didn't seem far enough, but it was the right move."

Settling in Sydney, he made a living breaking and preparing horses to go into training, and had 2,500 pass through his hands. Then, nine years ago, after a prolonged struggle with the Victoria Racing Club, which was aware of his transgressions in Britain, he was granted a licence to train in his own right in the Melbourne area.

Although making a reasonable living - he had 150 winners - he could not resist the temptation to try his luck in a more pressured atmosphere when invited to Malaysia last year by the local racing authority. He arrived last September, and has no regrets at the move.

HE SAYS: "A trainer's judgement must be spot-on because some owners bet serious money out here. By serious, I mean to win sums in the region of  £300,000 to £400,000. But they punt each-way, so if a backed one makes the frame you can breathe a little easier.

"I thrive on the challenge of getting it right, and so far we're doing all right."

He adds: "The secret of survival here is not to get mixed up with the big gambling syndicates."

The racing is supremely well marshalled and the stewards are very strict.

"Every runner is blood-tested two hours before a race, and again afterwards if it has made the frame."

However, he obviously aches deeply for his old stamping ground - a friend in London he calls 'The Butterfly' posts him an occasional parcel containing video tapes of jump races - and he considers he will be able to hold his head high when he does return to Britain, where his sister Pamela lives in Northampton.

"People react differently to me now I've made something of myself," he says. "I've met up with Robert Sangster, Dermot Weld and Kevin Prendergast when they've been to Melbourne, and they were good to me. Strangely enough, the Jockey Club's former head of security Peter Smiles has become one of my best friends."

Where did it all go wrong for Brogan? He talks freely about the wrecked career and, although it coincided with the break-up of his marriage to the now Mary Hambro, currently a trainer at Moreton-in-Marsh in the Cotswolds, he blames nobody but himself.

"I got stuck heavily into vodka and gambling," he answers bluntly. "Before long I was mentally round the bend. Right round the bend. Most of the time I couldn't walk in a straight line. Goodness knows what people thought of me. It horrifies me when I look back. I was in a crazy, crazy world.

"When you get on that downward spiral it spins faster every day. You get trapped. You look at yourself and hate what you see.

"Punting was my downfall - more so than the drink. I'd have a bet, then win the same race on another horse and cost myself a fortune. I always thrived on the challenge of riding a winner, even if it cost me loads of money.

"My life was nothing but dead-ends. I mixed with the wrong crowd. I'd have stayed out of prison but for the gambling. I was a fool, and thought I could pull strokes.

"I've paid a price. I believe, and hope, the slate is now regarded as wiped clean. I'm not a waster, I'm a worker. Ask anyone about me, they'll confirm that.

"I'm not sure what'll happen when I do come home. So much will have changed. I doubt there are many people who'll remember me for being a good jockey."

He may be surprised

Result of John Harris Disciplinary Panel hearing

In breach of (A)38.1 in respect of training FADHB AR BITH (IRE) when run at unrecognised meeting in Ireland, Aug '10. Disqualified 4 months.

In breach of (A)30.3.1 in respect of association with Mr Gerard Faulkner, a disqualified person. Fined £2,000.

Disciplinary Panel’s reasons to follow