Outspoken Mann has final word at the finishing post
As one of racing’s great characters hands in his trainer’s licence, he admits: ‘I probably said too much’
It is with a degree of sadness that I note Charlie Mann will hand in his trainer’s licence on the last day of the season, because if an enthusiast like him can get fed up with it, then the game, to a certain extent, has gone.
Mann, 62, is one of racing’s more colourful characters but, with Oliver Sherwood set to train from his yard, Neardown at Upper Lambourn, from July 1, he will, he points out, make more money lying in bed than he currently does working all hours.
He was brought up in the Borders, where his mother dealt in ponies. As an incentive, she casually mentioned that if he won the Scottish Show Jumping Championships he need not go back to school. He won and, aged 15, left for Newmarket, where he rode out 11 lots a day for Peter Poston, a butcher by trade who trained his own horses at the foot of Warren Hill.
In 1979, he arrived in Lambourn, joining Nicky Henderson, a year into his training career, as a conditional jockey, having turned down another recent start-up, Michael Dickinson, because he “didn’t think he’d make a trainer”.
He rode for 17 years, broke his neck in 1989 and, having come back on a dodgy Italian licence after the Jockey Club refused him a British one, he won the Velka Pardubicka on It’s A Snip in 1995, becoming the only British jockey to win it since Chris Collins on Stephen’s Society in 1973.
He had six rides in the Grand National, was “drunk in three of them – you had to be, the horses I was riding”, and boasts a 100 per cent record; for never getting round. Once he was leading the field out on the second circuit on Doubleuagain, only to be wiped out by a loose horse at the 17th.
Mann’s last ride in it was on Lucky Rew. The trainer promised him £400 for riding it but, having not been paid, he refused to hand over the saddle at the weigh-out until the trainer had been to the nearest cashpoint. He returned with £286, as much as he could
muster. “Lucky Rew was so small he was actually looking up at the first when I went to show him,” he said. “Needless to say, he fell at it.”
Mann never meant to go into training, but was wheeler-dealing in submarines and caviar – “I might go back to that” – and ran the Lavender Ball, the highlight of Lambourn’s social year for a while in the last century.
But when he did start training, the results were instant; his first runner was a winner, he had 15 winners in his first season, he won 63 races one season with just 50 horses, and was soon up to a stable of 65 horses.
Celibate was a Grade One two-miler, but picked up money when sixth behind Bindaree in the 2002 Grand National. Other good horses included Air Force One and Moon Over Miami.
He plucked Noel Fehily out of Irish point-to-points and brought him over to Britain, employing him for 16 years before he became fashionable. Likewise, he brought Gavin Sheehan over.
“I probably opened my mouth a bit too much,” said Mann in summary of his career. “I fell out with the Jockey Club over a few things. I don’t sit on the fence on much. I could have done better.
“But any trainer who says they enjoyed every minute of it must either be a liar or there’s something wrong with them, what with injuries, bad debts and being nice to people you can’t stand.
“It’s become very difficult, the big yards have become bigger and the small yards smaller.
“But it hasn’t stopped me, I’m getting out of it and as we love living here it was a no-brainer to rent it out to Oliver.”
He will not be bored. “I got a new hot tub in December, I’ve got a lovely BMW, I’m going to take lots of holidays, and I’m going to set up a trainers’ helpline,” he said. “They’ll ring and moan, and I’ll tell them which Caribbean island I’ll be spending my next Christmas on.”