Dettori and a 20-1 long shot deliver the record for Johnston
Wait for 4,194th career victory is finally over Poet’s Society makes history with gutsy win
Mark Johnston became the most successful trainer in British racing history when Poet’s Society, a 20-1 outsider ridden by Frankie Dettori, won the Clipper Logistics Handicap at York yesterday. It was his 176th win of the season but, more importantly, the 4,194th of his career.
While other trainers may have had more big race successes, his achievement remains epic.
It has taken the Glasgow-born Johnston, 58, a qualified vet from a non-racing background who trains in the picturesque North Yorkshire village of Middleham, 31 years to get there. On Saturday, a double brought him level with Richard Hannon Snr, who took the old record from Martin Pipe (4,183), and set the bar at 4,193 when he retired in 2013.
Ironically, there have not been many times this season when Johnston has gone five days without a winner and after this victory he admitted it had been a vexing few days. “It had been getting very frustrating because of all the attention,” he said, as a succession of his colleagues patted him on the back and shook him by the hand. “The horses we have run have run well, but weren’t favourites. It’s a relief to get it out of the way.”
Johnston started training in 1987 at North Somercotes on the Lincolnshire coast, after taking out a £45,000 mortgage, a £15,000 over- draft and borrowing £5,000 from his father-in-law. At the time he had been a practicing vet and Deidre, his wife and now assistant, a teacher, and if he failed he reckoned the worst that could happen was that they would lose their money and return to their jobs.
But it really was a case of from small acorns. Restricted to galloping his horses on the beach when the tide was out and it was not being used by the RAF as a bombing range, his first season netted one winner and it took him five years to reach 100.
He recalled that when Hinari Video gave him his first success, at Carlisle in July 1987, it took three weeks for the video of the race to arrive, so they celebrated by watching the result on Teletext all night.
But in that first season the owner of Hinari Video gave him what turned out to be priceless advice; that he would never make it in Lincolnshire and in 1988 Johnston bought Kingsley House, in Middleham. He later added to it, buying the yard across the road from Neville Crump, who had two Grand National winners, and his expansion was exponential. Since then, he has sent out 100 plus winners in 25 seasons.
His breakthrough year was 1994 when Mister Baileys gave him his first Classic, the 2,000 Guineas, and he saddled more than 100 winners and won over £1million in prize money for the first time, plus Double Trigger, one of the most popular and successful stayers of the Nineties, arrived in the yard. Johnston is most proud of Attraction, the Duke of Roxburghe’s filly, who won the 1,000 Guineas as well as four other Group One races.
He has been the one trainer in the north to attract regular Arab patronage on a large scale and many of his 200-plus string are owned by Sheikh Mohammed’s Al Maktoum’s son, Sheikh Hamdan.
Yesterday’s winner, however, belonged to a syndicate the trainer had put together and carried his own colours. Apart from Dettori, who is not a regular in the saddle for him, it was a trademark Johnston win; making all the running and then fending off all-comers.
It cannot be said Johnston keeps his horses wrapped in cotton wool either – he prefers to run them on a racecourse rather than gallop them at home. Poet’s Society was having his 26th start of the year and winning its sixth race, his 11th in total. “I called him ‘old fella’ when I was saddling him up before I remembered he was only four!” joked the trainer.
“If we could have written the script Joe Fanning [who has ridden for him for 20 years] would have been on board or one of our regular jockeys, but on the other hand I thought if Frankie’s on it no one will forget it in a hurry.”
The trainer, who had two runners in the race, the other a 33-1 chance, also said he very nearly had not come to the races believing neither had a great chance of winning. With guests staying with him for York, he predicted that last night might be many things, but not early.
“I do have to pinch myself wondering how we have got to this number from where we started,” he explained. “Winners are very important and having more than anyone else is very important, but having reached 4,194 it just means we will be looking for winner 4,195. We’ll look for more records to break and more races to win. It’s not going to change our lives, but we recognise the importance.”