Brian Ellison

Full Results

When you think of mainstays of the Northern racing scene, few names will come into your head before Brian Ellison. A one-time jockey, now turned trainer, born and bred in the North East of England, Ellison has carved out an impressive career for himself, with plenty of winners along the way.

As a young boy, Ellison was a promising footballer, but when it was time to choose a route, he went against football, as at less than 5ft in height, he was considered too small. At this point, when he was 14, Ellison decided to be a jockey and would sit on a horse for the first time ever this age before leaving school to pursue that goal a year later.

At 17, he took out a license to become a conditional and would ride for 20 years as a national hunt jockey. He didn’t want to leave the sport when it was coming to an end, and during his final year as a rider, Ellison took out his training license before relinquishing his jockey license and moving straight into training in 1989.

Brian would go on to become an excellent dual-purpose trainer, with a handful of genuinely top-class horses at the yard over jumps and on the flat. Success over jumps was a little easier to come by for Ellison, and that included having runners at the Grand National.

The first of those would come in 2012 when Neptune Equester would run in the race under Felix de Giles. The pair would complete the course but never really got involved with the finish and would cross the line in 13^th position.

International Success

One of the biggest elements of the success that Brian Ellison has had over the years has been his desire to try anything with any horse, and that includes sending his horses across the sea to race elsewhere around the world.

He’s one of a few British trainers that will send runners to Ireland to compete in their big festivals. He’s won the Irish Cesarewitch while also targeting and winning one of the big flat handicaps at the Galway Festival, a race he won four years in a row from 2014 to 2017, including having the first three home in the race in 2017.

Further afield, Brian has sent horses to run in Australia in the past. Bay Story, Carte Diamond, Moyenne Corniche and Saptapadi are four runners who have all been sent to run in Group level races in Australia. While they’ve not won, they have performed very well down there.

This isn’t just about having success or not. Instead, it shows Ellison’s ability to think outside the box, his desire to try something new and be different, and, ultimately, how hard he works to find the right opportunities for horses in his yard.

Famous Horses Trained by Brian Ellison

Here are some of the most famous horses trained by Brian Ellison.

• Definitely Red
• Top Notch Tonto
• Marsh Warbler
• Moyenne Corniche