Respected Barry Baldwin reflects on glittering training career

By Jordan Gerrans

A ward of the state that described himself as a ‘wild child’ and a 'rebel’.

A young Barry Baldwin could never have envisaged where his life would take him through the racing caper.

Now 80 years of age after that tumultuous upbringing all those years ago, the equine industry gave the respected Baldwin a purpose and opportunity to rise from his troubled childhood.

After more than six decades in the sport, the Group 1 and premiership-winning trainer is set to call time on his own training career at the end of this month.

Baldwin has enjoyed an amazing career in the game.

Since it has been revealed he is closing his own stable, Baldwin has been described as ‘one of the most liked people in racing’ in tributes as well as someone who possesses a ‘wealth of knowledge.’

He has risen from being a battling apprentice jockey to a bush trainer before rising through the provincial ranks and eventually becoming a leading city trainer at the metropolitan and international level.

Baldwin will not be lost to the sport all together as he is set to take on a casual role within another stable.

He will close up his own barn at the completion of November.

“I am going to miss going to work and seeing the happy faces and talking to other people, as well as seeing the horses,” Baldwin says.

“Some horses – it is amazing – they love any attention you can give and the better they are from it.

“If you treat them well, they appreciate it.

“That saying is happy wife leads to a good life and it is the same sort of thing with a happy horse.”

He won Queensland’s great race – the Group 1 Stradbroke Handicap – back in 2006 with La Montagna, a filly he described as a ‘powerhouse.'

To win a prestigious race such as the Stradbroke as a trainer must have seemed impossible for a young Barry Baldwin all those decades ago.  

“I was a wild kid, coming from a split home and I was a ward of the state for some six years,” he remembers.

“It was not a rough upbringing but I had a good upbringing with discipline but I did not like being disciplined.

“I came to the stage where I got 18 cuts one day at school, I was a bit of a rebel.”

At 80 years of age, Baldwin is not pulling stumps on his training career because he does not have any fuel left in the tank or is struggling to keep up with the day-to-day rigours of training.

With 15 boxes needing to be filled at Eagle Farm to pay the bills, it is getting tougher for Baldwin to get the numbers required.

So, he will step away from his own team he is preparing and take on a role with fellow Eagle Farm trainer Chris Anderson.

“Now is the time,” he said.

Baldwin’s more than 60 years in racing have taken him right around the Sunshine State.

He cut his teeth in the bush on the tough non-TAB circuit which prepared him for a great career in the city.

Baldwin rode as an apprentice jockey as a young fella in Brisbane with the retiring trainer referring to his career in the saddle back then as “unsuccessful.”

He found some luck in the bush as a rider, collecting winners at tracks such as Roma and Rockhampton, among others.

At Roma was where he eventually took out his trainer's licence as a 22-year-old.

“I got my trainer's licence at the picnics, which is what they initially gave it to me for, and I think I had nine runners that first day and I was very disappointed,” he recalls.

“The next day, I think we won two or three races and had six placings.

“What started out as a bad start ended up being a good two days over it all.”

When he was starting out with his own stable, Baldwin always followed the advice of the late legendary race horse trainer Jim Atkins.

Baldwin says he was ‘always a horseman’ in himself but the guidance from the revered Atkins was crucial.

“I started off reasonably well in the bush and became the leading trainer in Roma as well as sending a number of horses down that raced with Jimmy Atkins,” Baldwin says.

“After 16 years in the bush, Jimmy wrote me a letter and suggested I come to Toowoomba and train.

“I trained my first winner at my second meeting in Toowoomba and it all snowballed from there.

“From there I went forward and I had good advice from Jimmy Atkins, who was a lovely old gentleman and a legend.”

He stayed in Toowoomba for 13 years and moved to Eagle Farm in 1994.

After winning a Brisbane trainers’ premiership, Baldwin made the biggest decision of his life to pack up and train in Macau.

The international move was the largest learning curve of his time in the sport, Baldwin says.

He has trained more than 2000 winners in Australia and abroad.

La Montagna’s Stradbroke victory stands out amongst the more than 2000 victories but he had a number of other high-class gallopers.

Sprinter Baggio finished second to All Our Mob in the 1994 Stradbroke Handicap while in more recent times a big grey put Baldwin’s name up in lights.

The Candy Man battled health issues throughout his career but raced on and become a cult figure with punters and racing fans.

Baldwin describes The Candy Man as a ‘larrikin’ that caught everyone’s eye.

He won Cups in Toowoomba and Rockhampton, as well.

Baldwin recently celebrated his 50^th wedding anniversary with his treasured wife Margaret.

Baldwin has galloper Reeanon entered to race at Ipswich on Thursday of this week as he nears the end of his official training tenure. 

Stable star Gave Us Up contested the Listed Mooloolaba Cup on Saturday afternoon and was far from disgraced, running just over three lengths behind the winner.