Barry Hills: a man with a razor-sharp sense of humour and a tongue that could make shrinking violets of the most robust

The numbers alone make impressive reading but they do not capture his essence; Barry Hills’s list of achievements illustrated that a combination of restless energy and searing ambition could conquer all.

To the many traits that punctuated his career can be added the virtues of meticulous planning and a forensic attention to detail. In conversation with him, it was better to keep your mouth shut unless you were sure of your facts. He had the same intolerance of slovenliness as he had for blunderbusses.

Here was a man who started with nothing and came close to buying Manton, the historic Wiltshire estate where he’d trained for three years, and which was on the market for an eight-figure sum in 1990. When that came up short Hills, then 63, turned on his heels and developed Faringdon Place from a vacant plot of land into one of the country’s prime racing stables.

Hills had long since trained horses for Manton’s owner, Robert Sangster. He was upset when Sangster overlooked him and installed Michael Dickinson as his private trainer at Manton in 1986. Soon after, when Dickinson refused to allow Hills to visit the property, Hills delighted in hiring a helicopter to see it for himself.

That was typical of the man. He had a razor-sharp sense of humour and a tongue that could make shrinking violets of the most robust. He worked as hard as he played.

Barry Hills in 2001 at Faringdon Place, the state-of-the-art stables he developed in LambournCredit: Edward Whitaker (racingpost.com/photos)

From the 1980s his determination to expand his client base saw him become the only trainer to handle horses for every significant owner in Britain. “Nothing is impossible,” he was fond of saying. If it was out there to be had, Hills always wanted some of it.

For Hills, racecourses were places of entertainment, where he indulged himself with like-minded company. Legion were the stories that would unfold at Chester’s May meeting when Sangster and another lifelong friend, Bobby McAlpine, were invariably present.

A particularly raucous celebration followed the victory of Free Sweater in the 1989 Dee Stakes. McAlpine had named the horse for Hills’s propensity to perspire profusely, and although Free Sweater failed to feature on his next start in the Italian Derby, connections returned home fortified by an impressive lunch at Cortomuso restaurant across the road from the Capannelle racecourse turnstiles.

It was no surprise to hear Hills lament life in retirement, which he found boring. He still watched all the morning gallops after he passed Faringdon Place on to his son, Charlie, but he was unable to plot the careers of the horses in Charlie’s care.

Barry Hills and son Charlie following the handover of power at Faringdon PlaceCredit: Edward Whitaker (racingpost.com/photos)

“When I was training there were two places I wanted to be,” he said in a Racing Post interview in 2019. “With the horses in the mornings and in the winner’s enclosure in the afternoons.”

The afternoons were when he executed the ideas he formulated when watching morning exercise. This sometimes involved putting his money where his mouth was, and on those occasions bookmakers soon learned he meant business; most of them ran for cover.

That greatly irritated Hills, whose relationship with the layers was adversarial. Very much an old-school thinker, he felt they should stand tall and take his bets. “The bookies don’t like losing but landing a coup is tremendously satisfying,” he said in that same interview. “I think racing needs a little bit of skulduggery; it needs a bit of fascination but it has become over-policed to an extent.”

Although Sangster coined the sobriquet The Sparrow for Hills on account of his frugal appetite, he was more generally known in Lambourn as Mr Grumpy; no explanation was needed and no-one felt the full force of his tirades as much as his five sons.

Barry Hills with sons Michael Hills (left) and RichardCredit: Edward Whitaker (racingpost.com/photos)

For all that, the greater the involvement of his sons in a big-race triumph, the prouder it made Hills feel. He was frequently moved to tears when asked to discuss his relationship with them. This reached its apogee in 2009 when Ghanaati won the Coronation Stakes. With Hills lying stricken in hospital, one son, Charlie, supervised the filly’s preparation while another, Richard, rode her to victory.

It showed him that Charlie was ready to take over at Faringdon Place. True to form, however, he didn’t just hand Charlie the keys and wish him well. He put together a financial plan which saw Charlie effectively installed as a rent-paying tenant.

Having clawed his way from the bottom to the top of a cut-throat profession, Barry Hills was never going to dish out silver spoons and nor would his sons have expected him to.

Barry Hills 1937-2025:

Barry Hills, legendary trainer and head of a major racing dynasty, dies at the age of 88 

'He did it all from scratch' - 'streetfighter' Barry Hills conquered racing's peaks and became a Lambourn legend 

Five stars: Arc hero Rheingold heads the list of the best horses Barry Hills trained  

'It took several months to get all the money on' - Barry Hills on the gamble which launched a legacy