LOOKS like Hurricane Fly started a trend. No sooner had the HF-embroidered pipe and slippers been ordered than Hayley Turner (HT) announced that she would cease being a jockey at the end of this season. She might ride out at Newmarket if circumstances and the mood allowed, but she wouldn’t be a jockey any more.

Olly Stevens had already announced that he would not be renewing his trainer’s licence, and James Toller followed. Then, on Thursday evening, the evergreen Clive Brittain announced that he would not be renewing his.

“It has been a long time coming,” said Brittain on Thursday. “My wife hasn’t been that well, and it was never ever just Clive Brittain, it was always Maureen and Clive. She’s not able to take part now, so I’m only getting half the pleasure that I used to get. She was the brains, and I was just the one who could ride the odd horse.”

Julio Mariner was Brittain’s first classic winner in the 1978 St Leger and Pebbles was a path-finder, one of the first truly international horses. Brittain sent Pebbles to Aqueduct to land the Breeders’ Cup Turf in 1985, just the second year of the Breeders’ Cup’s existence. Then he sent Jupiter Island to Tokyo the following year and won the Japan Cup.

Start to list Brittain’s great horses, and you span five decades. From Julio Mariner to Pebbles and Averof to Mystiko and Sikeston and User Friendly and Sayyedati to Warrsan and Luso and Crimplene, all the way to his most recent Group 1 winner Rizeena, and the trainer’s little winner’s enclosure jig that accompanied her. We’ll miss that.