YEAR OF KING JON’S CORONATION
The horses — and people — to watch in 2022
JONBON
HE carried 11st 4lb to victory on his hurdling debut at Newbury in November — not to mention a huge weight of expectation.
As a full-brother to Willie Mullins’ great eight-time Grade 1 winner Douvan – and a £570,000 purchase at Goffs’ point-to-point sale in November 2020 – the Nicky Henderson trainee always had a lot to live up to. So far, so good.
After recording a six-length victory at Newbury, JP McManus’ six-year-old hardly broke sweat to follow up from a smart field at Ascot eight days before Christmas, and he’s hardly scratched beneath the surface.
ALICE HAYNES
YUFTEN became Alice Haynes’ first runner as a trainer on February 22 last year, just hours after Boris Johnson had unveiled the four-step plan for ending COVID-19 restrictions in England.
A global health and economic crisis might not seem the ideal backdrop to start a career training racehorses, but Haynes (top, right) has made an impressive start.
The Newmarket-based 30-yearold, once stable apprentice to
David Simcock, set herself a target of 10 winners for 2021, but ended the year with 20.
Listed scorer Mr Professor is testament to Haynes’ manual for improving horses, and is in action at Meydan next week.
COROEBUS
HIS unbeaten stablemate Native Trail heads the 2,000 Guineas market, but the pair’s trainer Charlie Appleby believes the layers have got their sums wrong.
Half an hour before Native Trail captured the Group1 Dewhurst Stakes at Newmarket last October, Coroebus eased to a two-length win in the Group 3 Autumn Stakes.
The win showed Dubawi’s son had learned from his neck defeat in the track’s Group 2 Royal Lodge Stakes a fortnight earlier, in which the handsome bay had thrown away certain victory.
Appleby believes “supreme traveller” Coroebus is capable of roughing up his neighbour over the Rowley Mile in April – and it’s hard to disagree.
SAM THOMAS
A TRAINING career that made a few attempts at take-off is now well and truly airborne.
Sam Thomas, the man who rode Denman to his 2008 Cheltenham Gold Cup triumph, admits he was “trying to run before I could walk” during his early years with a licence. But a move to Dai Walters’ training complex at Lisvane on the outskirts of Cardiff is paying dividends.
Last season’s haul of 26 winners more than matched 37-year-old Thomas’ tally for his first five campaigns and last month’s Welsh Grand National hero Iwilldoit has – like his trainer – a bright future.
GALOPIN DES CHAMPS
STRANGE to recall that Galopin Des Champs (above, centre) was a 100-1 rag when sixth to stablemate Appreciate It at the Dublin Racing Festival last February.
Even by his own standards, Willie Mullins has worked miracles with the six-year-old, who won the Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys’ Handicap Hurdle on his next start.
Galopin Des Champs then laughed at his rivals with a 12-length win in Punchestown’s Grade 1 Irish Mirror Novice Hurdle. His chase debut at Leopardstown over Christmas – which ended in a 22-length romp – was faultless. “That was really something else,” said Mullins. Indeed it was, Willie.
SAFFIE OSBORNE
INJURY saw to it that Saffie Osborne had to settle for second in the race for the apprentice title in 2021 – but she’ll be going all out to go one better this year.
A fractured tibia last July and complications to a broken left arm sustained the previous October capped Osborne’s (bottom, left) total at 40 in 2021.
The 19-year-old is apprenticed to her father, Lambourn trainer Jamie Osborne, but her winners came for an ever-expanding client base, including Roger Charlton, Charlie Hills, Clive Cox and Ed Walker.
Expect more trainers to add their names to the list in 2022.