Brian grew up in Tarlee, South Australia, riding ponies and horses to school. He rode in pony races and hunted before re-locating to Willalooka in the South East of the state, where he met one of the early Horse Trials organizers in Australia, John Rymill, who was a committee member of the Gawler 3DE. John suggested that Brian was a potential eventer, and gave him his first dressage lessons, and his son, Peter Rymill assisted Brian with jumping lessons in the lead up to his first event, Mount Gambier ODE. Even though he fell off twice, he was hooked on the new sport.

Just two weeks after his seventeenth birthday (the minimum age to compete) Brian entered the Novice class at Gawler on his gelding, De Chana. In 1967, riding Copenhagen, he was second in the Open section behind Bill Roycroft and Avatar. He rode for Australia on Wakool at the Munich Olympic Games in 1972.

Since then, Brian became a racehorse trainer, a widely sought after eventing dressage judge and coach to many young eventers.