James Barry Brogan was born in Holler Street Hospital, Dublin, on April 18, 1947, the eldest of four children of former jockey turned trainer Jimmy Brogan, who finished second in the 1948 Grand National on First Of The Dandies. Barry rode his first winner over hurdles in a Mullingar bumper on May 18, 1963; his first over hurdles on Ballygowan at Leopardstown on February 1 1964 and his first over fences on Bland Lady in a Down Royal Hunters' Chase on May 16, 1964.
Barry Brogan, a leading amateur rider in his native Ireland, made his name in Britain with trainer Ken Oliver in Scotland, riding prolific winners Billy Bow, Even Keel, and Drumikill, the last-named finishing runner- up to the great Persian War in the Champion Hurdle in 1969. The previous year, Brogan had ridden Moidore's Token to finish second to Red Alligator in the Grand National.
He also won the 1970 Scottish Grand National riding the stable's The Spaniard.
Brogan was runner-up to Graham Thorner in the 1970-71 jockeys' championship; the following season, riding as stable jockey for Lambourn-based Fulke Walwyn, he rode 70 winners.
He enjoyed a notable success on The Dikler in the King George Vl Chase at Kempton and was also placed twice on the same horse in the Cheltenham Gold Cup.
Success was short-lived: by 1973 Brogan had become a chronic alcoholic and returned to Ireland to dry out in a Dublin clinic.
He surrendered his licence to ride and, despite returning midway through the following season, struggled to rebuild his career.
His final winner came on Captain Nolan at Nottingham on March 23, 1977. Captain Nolan was also his final ride, at Worcester on May 9, 1977.
His racing days behind him, Brogan returned to the bottle. In his autobiography, he admitted to begging on the streets, compulsive gambling and taking money to help fix races.
In 1978, at Gloucester Crown Court, he was given an 18-month jail sentence, suspended for two years, after admitting dishonestly obtaining more than £5,000 from the Wetherby's accounts of leading jump jockeys Tommy Stack and Jimmy Bourke.
The court was told that, though Brogan was staying with Terry Biddlecombe, he was unemployed and homeless, and that his career had failed due to his drinking.
Later, because the offences were racing-related, he was warned off by the Jockey Club for three years.
Worse was to come. His suspended jail sentence was activated when he got into further trouble in Edinburgh. On that occasion he was sent to prison for three months after admitting taking £2,000 from a car he later reported stolen. He lost the money in a Ladbrokes betting shop.
Incredibly, after three more jail sentences, Barry Brogan miraculously turned his life around.
In 1984, with his riding career in tatters, Brogan set off for Australia.
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.
"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, 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 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 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 percent 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 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."
Barry rode his first winner, High Priest, when just 15 years old. It was owned by Colonel Hill-Dillon and trained by his father Jimmy Brogan, who finished second in the 1948 Grand National on First Of The Dandies.
Barry had his first ride in public when he was 15 and at Mungret College, Limerick. This was on Felspar in a Bumper race at Leopardstown in 1962.
Barry left college when he was 17 and, at 18, was the leading amateur in Ireland with 15 victories. In the same year, 1965, he took over the family stable on the death of his father, and trained 9 winners.
Even Keel was Barry's first winner in England.
When not racing, Barry hunted with the Buccleugh, enjoyed shooting and played a great game of tennis.
Biggest wins:
1968: Cotswold Chase - The Hustler
1968: George Duller Hurdle - The Spaniard
1970: Scottish Grand National - The Spaniard
1970: Benson & Hedges Handicap Chase - Even Keel
1971: Kirk & Kirk Handicap - Even Keel
1971: King George Vl Chase - The Dikler
1975: Black & White Whisky Gold Cup - Flashy Boy
