Brian Baugh
National Hunt jockey Brian Baugh began his life in racing as an apprentice with Reg Hollinshead, then went to Captain Richard Head. He rode over jumps for two seasons in the mid-1970s – 72/73 and 73/74 – for Roy Cambidge.
He only had around two dozen rides in all, the closest he came to winning a race was when finishing third on four-year-old hurdler M’Chaka at Uttoxeter and fourth on Soul Music at Bangor in the spring of 1974.
Soul Music was probably the best horse he rode. He just a weak novice hurdler at the time, though he went on to win several races for various trainers over the course of the next seven seasons, including three chases in nine days for John Baker in August 1978.
Brian was still with Roy Cambidge at the time of his memorable Cheltenham Festival double with Roaring Wind (Arkle Chase) and Java Fox (County Hurdle) in 1976.
After a spell in Newmarket with Harry and Geoff Wragg, he returned to Cambidge as head lad. He held a similar post with Staffordshire trainer Peter Bevan at the time of Salwan’s Aintree victory in the Glenlivet Anniversary Hurdle.
Brian then started training, initially as a permit holder, based a couple of miles from junction 16 of the M6, a mere stone’s throw from the A500 dual carriageway. He recorded his first success with War Beat, a former Bevan inmate, in a Worcester novices’ hurdle on 27 August 1992.
Brian suffered a family tragedy when his brother Ian, who owned most of the horses in the yard, died suddenly. However, having been down to just a handful of horses, Brian succeeded in building up a string of around two dozen in his 28-box yard. Appropriately, one of his best horses was Boffy, named in memory of the trainer’s later brother. Bought for 6,000 guineas at Doncaster Breeze-Up Sales and standing a mere 14.3 hands high, Boffy won several races, both on turf and all-weather, albeit in selling and claiming company.
In the summer of 1997, Brian moved to a yard on the outskirts of Audley, near Stoke-on-Trent. He continued to churn out winners there for the next 15 years but found the going increasingly tough. By 2016 the size of his string had dwindled from the low 20s to just half a dozen.
David’s Beauty provided Brian with his last two winners when landing a pair of five-furlong handicaps at Chepstow handicap under Luke Morris on 15 June and 23 August 2018.
His last runner, a horse named North Korea, finished tenth of twelve runners in a six-furlong handicap at Wolverhampton on 3 January 2020.
