THIS IS FINDON VILLAGE — created by Valerie Martin, contains scenes from her home village of Findon, West Sussex, U.K.

DOUG BARROTT (1947-1973)

Copyright Valerie Martin 2002

From the day he was born in 1947 in Cowfold, West Sussex, Douglas Colin Barrott was surrounded by horses.  He was the son of Lieutenant Colonel John Hornung's stud groom at High Hurst Manor Stud in Cowfold.  Surprisingly, Doug did not sit on a mount until he was nine.  Under his father's supervision, he learnt to ride on the ponies owned by Major Derek Wigan that were bought to run with the foals.  It was not surprising that he became a natural  — and in time he came to ride the Wigan horses.

As he grew older, he went hunting and did much show jumping.  His first real connection with the racing world came when he was 14 years old.   The trainer, Derek Crossman had bought a place not far from the stud, at Copsale in West Sussex and Doug used to ride out for him before going to school.  He would obviously skip the boring homework for an evening stint in the stables any time!

By the age of fourteen, Doug became quite a heavy smoker in an attempt (he hoped) to retard his growing and keep the weight down.   Every opportunity "to have a cigarette" was taken and he noticeably reeked of smoke.   His friends say he took his habit with him on school trips when the teachers were not looking.

A year before leaving school, Doug weighed about 5 stone and declared that horses were going to be his future life and his father was keen for him to serve an apprenticeship. 

In 1962, after an introduction by Derek Crossman to Willie Stephenson at Royston in Hertfordshire, Doug signed up for five years in the April.  He now weighed 7½ stone and was light enough for flat racing.  He wondered at this time if weight would be a future problem.

Most keen young riders who join a stable have to wait their turn for their first chance to ride in a race.  Doug obtained his first ride in public after he had been at Royston for just one month — this was maybe proof of Stephenson's high regard for his newest recruit.  The horse that day was Jirabee in a two-year-old race at Newmarket.  Unfortunately, Doug finished among the also-rans that day, and fared no better on about nine other occasions that season.  It was not until the following year (May, 1963) that he entered the winners' enclosure for the very first time after steering Panastar to a neck victory in an apprentice race at Leicester.

Doug had only one other success on the flat —  like many young jockeys, he put on weight as he grew older and when he reached nearly 9 stone was forced to switch to National Hunt racing.  He then rode for Brighton permit holder, Peter Feilden, a friend of the family.  After that he was successful on a couple of Willie Stepenson's jumpers and eventually rode regularly for Captain Ryan Price in Findon.  

The stable jockey at the Findon yard at this time was the up and coming Josh Gifford.  A name synonymous with winners and who appeared to be heading for his third jockeys' championship.  Josh then took a tumble on 30th November 1964 at Nottingham on Reverando — it turned out to be a bad fall.  He broke his right thigh and he missed the remainder of the season.

Just as his leg had mended, Josh went to play in a cricket match in Oxfordshire.   On the drive back home to Findon he was involved in an accident and broke the very same leg again.  The stainless steel plate which had been inserted previously was smashed and the operation had to be performed again.  

This meant that Josh was on the sidelines and out of the saddle for fourteen months and missed the first half of the next season too.  While Josh was absent with his injuries, Captain Ryan Price shared the rides out between other contemporary stable jockeys, Buck Jones, Paul Kelleway — and, of course, Doug.

Doug rode sixteen winners altogether in the 1965/66 campaign, almost double his previous season's score.  When Stephenson's stable jockey, Mike Scudamore was forced to quit after a serious fall in November 1966, Doug took over from him.

It was now that he suffered his first serious spill of his career on 1st April 1967.  Four days after riding his 17th winner of the season, Tee Up at Wetherby, Doug came down on Ribobo at Leicester and badly dislocated a shoulder.  The fall, which pinched a couple of nerves and paralysed two of the muscles in his arm, kept him away from race meetings for the remainder of the season.

The injury also prevented him from fulfilling a contract he had been offered to ride in Norway during the summer of 1967 — but Doug still made the trip a few months later for a "get fit" holiday.

Returning to England for the 1967/68 season, Doug was again first jockey to Stephenson but with only four winners to his name, and the big race dates coming up, disaster struck again.  On 24th November 1967,  while riding Lady Pandor for Reg Hollinshead at Doncaster, he fell heavily on the second to last hurdle and broke his right leg rather seriously.  Doug had an appointment with Bill Tucker the London specialist and at one stage it looked as thought he would not ride again and the future seemed extremely gloomy.  There is always light at the end of the tunnel though and after two skin grafts, a bone graft and four screws in the leg, Doug departed for a long holiday in Bermuda (where Bill Tucker had a home).

The previously shoulder injury and the broken leg meant that Doug had only spent three months in the saddle from April 1967 to February 1969.  Time does not stand still and such a lengthy absence from the racing world meant that some dusty cobwebs were covering the name of "D. Barrott" on racecourse numberboards throughout the country.

Every cloud has a silver lining.  Three months after breaking his leg, Doug met Sue, a local farmer's daughter and they married in July 1969 and lived in Horsham and then West Grinstead and they had two sons, Andy and Michael. 

Doug wasted no time in advertising his return to the saddle with a victory at Kempton Park for John Hicks the trainer.  More were to follow, in fact nine during the 1968/69 season.  He then became second jockey to Captain Ryan Price's stable in Findon. 

When Josh Gifford took over from Ryan, he asked Doug to be his stable jockey and Doug jumped at the chance.   Doug was one of the jockeys who played golf fairly regularly at Hill Barn below Cissbury Ring, together with Josh.

His final score for the 1970/71 season was ten winners, although he had spent much of the time riding in Norway where he had five winners... including the Norwegian Champion Hurdle for the second successive year.

Doug rode Rabble Rouser who won the 1972 Ladbroke Hurdle at Sandown and finished 3rd in the Schweppes Gold Trophy at Newbury two weeks later.  Frank H. Pullen, the owner of the horse, had a hefty bet on the double, and had planned to build Doug a free bungalow if he had won both races!   See my article on The Horses of Frank H. Pulllen.

Doug did not remain totally free from injury.  In March 1972, he broke a wrist at the Cheltenham Festival meeting.  He fell again in the Mildmay and only resumed at the tail end of the  season.  It was bad luck that the accident should happen in the very race before the Daily Express Triumph Hurdle, in which he had been looking forward to partnering Windrush. 

Weight was not a problem any longer for Doug at 9 stone 7 lbs. and he never had to diet.

The photograph at the very top of this page is of Doug Barrott at the age of 26 when he held one of the plum jobs in racing and was riding as first jockey to Josh Gifford's powerful Findon stables where some of the best jumpers of the time in the country were trained.

Doug rode on every course in the South of England and the Midlands, and in the West Country.  The majority of the meetings on the southern circuit are less than an hour away by car and when he was riding in the Midlands, Doug went by train.   With their two sons to look after, Sue did not have much time to go to racecourses but she drove Doug to the meetings whenever possible, which made a break for him.  He estimated that he travelled 40,000 miles a year — not including travelling abroad of course.

Besides Norway, where he had ten successes in total, Doug also rode in Ireland, France and Germany.  There were only five race tracks in Britain that did not see him, Cartmel, Catterick, Carlisle, Hexham and Perth.  He rated Sandown his luckiest course but in a way it was to be his demise.  He was never to fulfil his ambition of going into training or into partnership with his father-in-law, who quit the agricultural world several years previously for the building business.

The tide of fortune changed dramatically as it often does.  Generally speaking the racing fraternity responds very indifferently to the news of the death of one of its horses but the death of a jockey is more newsworthy.  Doug was a well-known jump rider of his era, and was fatally hurt in 1973 after an horrendous fall at Newcastle riding French Colonist.  He was dragged along the ground by his stirrup and suffered head injuries in the Whitbread Gold Cup.  This race had been transferred to the northern course from Sandown Park.

There is now a Doug Barrott Novices' Handicap Hurdle run at Sandown Park each season for four-year-olds plus, over 2 miles 110 yards, to commemorate his untimely death.

John Goodwin of London told me in March 2003 that he had picked up at auction a signed race card for Plumpton dated January 1973.   The autographs on this race card included Paul Kelleway and Doug Barrott.   Little did anyone suspect at that happy time that he would be killed within a few months while riding the same horse.

In July 2003 I received an e-mail from Peter Long —

Continue if you would like to read about The Kilmore Club in 1963.

THIS IS FINDON VILLAGE — www.findonvillage.com is a continually growing record created exclusively for documenting life in Findon.