Article by Chris Pitt
Michael John Brown was born on August 12, 1936, and served his apprenticeship with Bill Marshall and Eric Foley. He rode his first winner on Marshall’s selling hurdler Sabot at Plumpton on October 10, 1955, getting the better of a desperate finish in which the distances between the first three horses were a head and a dead-heat.
That was his sole winner of the 1955/56 season. He rode just one the next and none at all the season after that, but gradually things began to pick up as he struck up associations with a number of permit holders.
A selling hurdler named Bouboule, owned and trained by Victor North at Wing, near Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, provided him with all three of his victories in 1958/59, the last of them being a dead-heat at Plumpton. A winner for Cliff Beechener at Stratford in December 1959 plus two over Easter 1960 – Cordwainer at Market Rasen for Melton Mowbray permit holder Cecil Earl and Kathiawar at Uttoxeter for Newmarket trainer Scotty Pringle – made up Mick’s winners for the following season.
He rode winners on two successive days in November 1960 – juvenile hurdler Anuffon for Chesterfield-based owner-trainer Emald Hill, and Eric Foley’s selling chaser Boy’s Hurrah – which reduced his claim to 5lb, and then Cliff Beechener’s Danger Signal won over Liverpool’s Mildmay fences in January 1961.
At that time Mick was living in Northampton. On Whit Monday 1961 he made the short journey to his local track, Towcester, without any booked rides, hoping to pick up bank holiday ‘spare’. He picked up two. The first, selling hurdler Bob Martin for Upper Lambourn trainer Geoff Kennedy, won. Half an hour later, the second, handicap chaser Candy King, trained by Dick Price at Clyro, Herefordshire, also won, giving Mick a welcome and unexpected double. Mick subsequently reflected that this represented the highlight of his riding career.
He rode two winners in the 1961/62 campaign – novice chaser Sally’s Rose and handicap hurdler Dick Brown, both for Finmere, Buckinghamshire permit holder Bert Allen – but then scored only one apiece – all at Towcester on bank holiday weekends – for the next three seasons.
Sally’s Rose won a pair of Market Rasen handicap chases in the early weeks of the 1965/66 season but they proved to be the last two of Mick’s career. From 1967 he trained privately for owner Frank Rose while continuing to hold a jockey’s licence until 1970.
Latterly, Mick lived in Stoke Bruerne, near Towcester and could often be found at his local race meeting. He confessed that he’d always preferred schooling horses to being a jockey.
He died in June 2009, aged 72.
Mick Brown’s winners were, in chronological order:
1. Sabot, Plumpton, October 10, 1955
2. Scottish Flake, Worcester, January 19, 1957
3. Bouboule, Wye, September 29, 1958
4. Bouboule, Huntingdon, December 26, 1958
5. Bouboule, Plumpton, January 5, 1959 (dead-heat)
6. Yardley, Stratford-on-Avon, December 10, 1959
7. Cordwainer, Market Rasen, April 18, 1960
8. Kathiawar, Uttoxeter, April 19, 1960
9. Anuffon, Uttoxeter, November 17, 1960
10. Boys Hurrah, Doncaster, November 18, 1960
11. Danger Signal, Liverpool, January 4, 1961
12. Bob Martin, Towcester, May 22, 1961
13. Candy King, Towcester, May 22, 1961
14. Sally’s Rose, Plumpton, September 27, 1961
15. Dick Brown, Towcester, May 12, 1962
16. Dick Brown, Towcester, April 13, 1963
17. Lufa, Towcester, May 18, 1964
18. Sourieur, Towcester, April 17, 1965
19. Sally’s Rose, Market Rasen, August 12, 1965
20. Sally’s Rose, Market Rasen, September 25, 1965
