Joseph Brennan 

Article by Chris Pitt

National Hunt jockey-cum-trainer James Joseph Brennan was born in Ireland on February 25, 1920, and rode as an amateur there before the war. He relocated to England after the war and, on January 5, 1948, married Elizabeth Ann Dunlea, who in due course gave birth to a son, Maurice Edward, and a daughter, Mary Josephine.

He turned professional later that year, serving as assistant trainer and stable jockey to Major G. E. F. North, who owned, trained, and occasionally rode, a small string based at Compton Abdale, near Cheltenham. He rode his first winner on Major North’s Petrograd in a selling chase at Sandown’s Grand Military Meeting on March 17, 1951.

Because there was another jump jockey named James Brennan riding at the same time, the newspapers tended to list him as ‘Joseph’, ‘Jos’ or ‘J. Jos’ Brennan to avoid confusion. He rode for other owner-trainers in the Cheltenham area, including George Hanks, who provided him with a pair of victories on the strangely-named U. Searchlight.

The best of those Joseph rode for Major North was the veteran chaser Mountain Earl, on whom he won five times, three of which were gained in 1954, including the Harry Isaacs Memorial Challenge Cup Chase at Hereford.

He took out a trainer’s licence the following year, basing himself at Harnham Stables, Withington, near Cheltenham. On May 21, 1956, he trained and rode Desert Encounter to win a novices’ chase on Hereford’s Whit Monday card, his only winning ride that season.

After enduring a winless campaign in 1956/57, Desert Encounter got Joseph back in the winning groove when scoring at Worcester in November 1957. His other winner that season, trained as well as ridden, was novice hurdler Coughton at Ludlow in March.

Alice Plaid, on whom Pat Taaffe had won handicap chases at Dundalk and Killarney when she was trained in Ireland, became what turned out to be Joseph’s last winner as a jockey when taking three-mile Harville Handicap Chase at Wye on Monday, March 9, 1959.

Alice Plaid was owned by Mrs. Helen Carey, the principal owner in Joseph’s yard. The mare was placed several times but never won again after that Wye victory. but that was far from the end of her contribution to her owner and trainer, for in 1965 she produced a brown colt foal by Master Rocky. He was named Alice’s Boy and would be the best horse Joseph Brennan rode or trained.

Alice’s Boy got off the mark by winning a Ludlow novices’ hurdle in the hands of Richard Pitman in April 1970. Put over fences the following season, he won a Leicester novices’ chase in February 1971, ridden by David Jelf. Joseph rode Alice’s Boy a few times over hurdles that season, including what was the final ride of his career, when aged 51, at Stratford on June 4, 1971.

Ridden usually thereafter by claimer Roy Mangan, Alice’s Boy was campaigned regularly in decent company over the years, winning a pair of handicap chases at Ascot and even taking part in the 1974 Grand Steeplechase de Paris, in which he finished unplaced. Sadly, he suffered a tragic end. On September 25, 1976, partnered this time by Steve Smith Eccles, Alice’s Boy was clear jumping the last fence at Market Rasen and had the race at his mercy when he suddenly collapsed and died of a heart attack on the run-in.

By then down to just four horses and left without his stable star, James Joseph Brennan gave up training soon afterwards.

He had combined training with riding for almost 20 years. Although his successes were few and far between, he was the sort of person that represented the backbone of grassroots National Hunt racing.

In his entry in the trainers’ section of the 1963 edition of Directory of the Turf he lists Alice Plaid, Coughton and Desert Encounter as the three best he trained/rode during his career. That, of course, was before Alice’s Boy came along.

Most of the horses he rode/trained were moderate in the extreme, none more so than the duo of Mustapha and Man In The Moon, both of whom were in Joseph’s yard for several seasons without ever looking like winning a race. When belatedly sent point-to-pointing in 1970 at the ages of sixteen and thirteen respectively, they proved no better and both earned barbed comments in the 1971 edition of ‘Hunter Chasers and Point-to-Pointers’.

Man In The Moon, who was a half-brother to 1961 One Thousand Guineas and Oaks heroine Sweet Solera and had tailed himself off before refusing at the third fence on his only start in the Bicester ladies’ point-to-point, was described as “completely ungenuine, and virtually useless since 1959”, while Mustapha, who had last won in 1959, was given the dubious epithet “has the remarkable distinction of being virtually useless for a decade.”

James Joseph Brennan died in 1985. 

His winners as a jockey, in chronological order, were:

1. Petrograd, Sandown Park, March 17, 1951

2. Unguent, Stratford-on-Avon, November 10, 1951

3. U. Searchlight. Hereford, April 14, 1952

4. U. Searchlight, Stratford-on-Avon, May 8, 1952

5. Mountain Earl. Hereford, March 7, 1953

6. Mountain Earl, Hereford, April 6, 1953

7. Cardinal’s Drum, Wincanton, November 5, 1953

8. Mountain Earl, Worcester, February 27, 1954

9. Mountain Earl, Hereford, March 6, 1954

10. Mountain Earl, Wincanton, December 27, 1954

11. Desert Encounter, Hereford, May 21, 1956

12. Desert Encounter, Worcester, November 23, 1957

13. Coughton,  Ludlow, March 6, 1958

14. Alice Plaid, Wye, March 9, 1959