By winners trained, Mark Johnston is the greatest trainer of all-time. Obviously, this claim is not based on a like for like basis. Mark Johnston may have trained more individual winners than anyone else but with so many victories, I suspect, comes the title of more losers than anyone else. And at his height, Johnston had over 200-horses under his care. the great trainers of the past would have been lucky to have eighty. Yet being a title holder is not what I will remember him for; to me Mark Johnston is the man with the greatest and most erudite passion for our sport of my lifetime. If I could have chosen someone to fill the remit of Horse Racing Czar or supremo, I would have nominated Johnston in a heartbeat. You may not always agreed with him but you listened to every word. He will never be lost to our sport however, he's going nowhere, except on holiday far more often than when his name was on the licence and he will always be available for a quote, not shy to speak out with his opinion on how the broken can best be mended. Simon Cox would do well to share a pint with him before he officially takes up his post in October as Johnston would make a fine advisor.
Mark Johnston is The Racing Post's feature interview today and as always it is a joy to hear his Scottish accent flow from the page, his views expressed with such vigorous self-belief that is hard to belief that the B.H.A. did not suggest he apply for the post now occupied by Simon Cox. A great man of our sport; his voice needs to be heard more often, not less.
Jim Crowley must be the best jockey to retire since Frankie. Although he enjoyed a guard of honour from his fellow jockeys, ex, of course, now, his send-off was quiet and peaceful, as, I dare say, Jim would have wanted. No Ballyhoo; no grand tour. To go from a 300-winner jockey over jumps to a multiple Group 1 winning jockey on the flat elevates his position in the grand scheme of things. As he said, he rode in the Grand Steeple-Chase de Paris, the Velka Pardobika and a Melbourne Cup and has the Sussex and Eclipse Stakes on his c.v, the Champion Stakes and Juddmonte International, a Prince of Wales at Royal Ascot, plus the Coronation Cup and King George & Queen Elisabeth Stakes. Hopefully, he will find success in his second career as a trainer.
It is plainly obvious by some jockeys reaction when winning races that jockeys can adore the horses they ride. But can that always be true. Within a team, there must always be two people who do not see eye to eye, I would suspect. I have read that the Derby winner Hyperion hated for some reason Steve Donoghue, a man who it is said worshipped the ground Brown Jack walked on. Marcus Marsh in his autobiography 'Racing With The Gods' and who began his racing career as assistant to his uncle Fred Darling, wrote that Joe Childs, a jockey famed as the Jamie Spencer of his day, was asked by Darling to make the running on Coronach in the 1926 Epsom Derby. It was not at the time considered the right way to win a Derby and Childs objected, made his angst known to a trainer who usually brooked no dissent from anyone. Most jockeys would have been sacked on the spot yet Darling swallowed his pride as he knew Child's style of riding suited Coronach better than any other jockey. But he was not prepared to move on the subject, Childs would do as he was instructed. Through gritted teeth, Childs did as he was told and the long striding chestnut duly won the Derby. But according to Marsh, the kindly Childs hated even having to talk about the horse for the rest of his life. 'It is no way ride a race,' he would always say. 'Making it hard for a horse.'
Glorious Goodwood is over for another year. Goodwood, glorious or not, is, I think, my favourite flat race venue. It is not only the historic races, the widespread view of the countryside, even if made bare and brown by the fifty-year drought we are enduring, but the rights and lefts, the ups and downs, a racecourse where jockeys get tested as much as the horses. If, God forbid! Epsom were to close, I would clamour for the Derby be moved to Goodwood, even if it is not a Jockey Club racecourse. Although a test for horse and rider, it would make for a far fairer test of a 3-year-old than Epsom. As with Newbury, Goodwood could be better utilised and is a much better racecourse than either Ascot or even York, neither of which are as either unpredictable or as glamorous as Goodwood. Tis a shame they cannot incorporate a jumps course.