It could happen to a vet! History for Johnston
From starting out as a trainer on an RAF bombing range to the brink of an historic record (via McDonald’s and £53m in prize money!)
THERE is an historic landmark galloping towards Mark Johnston at appropriate breakneck speed.
The Yorkshire-based, Glasgowborn Scot, who grew up on an East Kilbride council estate, needs 13 winners to make him the British trainer who has saddled more winners in his native country than anyone else.
That will be more than 10-time champion Sir Michael Stoute, John Gosden, legendary late Sir Henry Cecil and past the two previous record holders Martin Pipe and Richard Hannon Snr.
When 58- year- old Johnston reaches 4,194 wins, probably within the next fortnight, it will be the most significant racing achievement of the year.
It will also be a moment not even Johnston, seemingly embodied with cussed determination, insatiable ambition and limitless energy, could have envisaged when he began training in 1987.
He had 12 moderate horses, most of them lame and some borrowed to fulfil the minimum required to secure a licence.
His stable was halfway between Grimsby and Mablethorpe on the Lincolnshire coast, his gallops the beach, shared by the RAF as a bombing range.
The horses might not have had to dodge the bomb craters but gallops were regulated by tides and weather.
Survival must have seemed ambitious for Johnston and his wife and assistant Dierdre as they managed only one win in their first year — Hinari Video at Carlisle—and five in the second.
Johnston recalled: ‘I was a vet and Deirdre a teacher. Deirdre’s father lent us £5,000, we got an endowment mortgage for £45,000 to buy the yard and an overdraft facility for £15,000.
‘We knew that the worst thing that would happen was that we would lose it all and end up back working as a teacher and a vet to pay off the debt.’
It is a world away from Johnston’s situation now with 230 horses in the North Yorkshire racing centre of Middleham.
Along the way he has trained horses such as Mister Baileys, his first Classic winner when landing the 1994 2,000 Guineas, Attraction, successful in the 2004 English and Irish 1,000 Guineas, and Double Trigger, 1995 Ascot Gold Cup winner and three-time Goodwood Cup (1995, ’97 & ’98) winner. That Johnston should be about to pass the total achieved by Pipe adds neat symmetry to his record-breaking.
Like bookmaker’s son Pipe, Johnston had no family background in racing. Outsiders both, Pipe’s achievements were an inspiration to the young Scot.
Johnston, who was crowned leading trainer at Glorious Goodwood for t he 11th time after saddling four win sat the meeting including Vale of Kent yesterday, said: ‘For years people would say to me who did you get your inspiration from? I would always say Vincent O’Brien, like probably everybody of my generation, because he was the No 1 trainer. ‘ But looking back it was Martin Pipe. I admired him more than anyone else. I can’t say I modelled anything on him but I was always a Pipe fan and even tried to get a job with him. ‘In fact he offered me one a few weeks before I had my offer on the yard i n Lincolnshire accepted. I don’t know how different things might have been.’ There are also other parallels. Fitness and toughness were and are watchwords for Johnston and Pipe horses. Both men have also been innovators. Pipe elevated the fitness level of a thoroughbred to new heights and embraced science.
Johnston has pioneered modern stable management. His yard is broken down into smaller units, using a model similar to how McDonald’s might run t heir burger joints.
When he was struggling to cope with a s pi r al l i ng workload, Johnston realised he had to delegate, with each staff member clearly understanding their own bite-size tasks like work teams churning out orders in a fast-food restaurant.
It also fostered greater personal responsibility plus healthy internal competition.
Recalling the day he knew something must change when a nail was discovered in the hoof of a lame horse, Johnston said: ‘Everyone passed the buck. The head lad was blaming the lad and the lad was blaming the assistant trainer.
‘I said “This is all wrong”. There has to be one person who is responsible. So I changed it. Each yard manager has on average 30 horses and 10 staff. They would ultimately be responsible for everything.’
Little thumb-twiddling goes on in the Johnston world. He has served as a director of the British Horse racing Authority and written columns for trade and national newspapers, his trenchant views often making him more enemies than friends.
He is a director at Hamilton racecourse, a trustee of the charitable Racing Foundation and a qualified pilot.
With son Charlie, 27, now an assistant trainer, a line of succession for Johnston exists, but retirement is not on his mind.
Ambitions remain. He would love to win both a Derby and a St Leger and Dee Ex Bee, this year’s Derby second, remains a major Leger player, especially given the stiffer stamina test, after his second to Cross Counter in the Qatar Gordon Stakes at Goodwood yesterday.
Johnston’s pace is not slacking. Each passing 1,000 successes has been achieved faster than the previous one — it took him only four years, six months and 18 days to go from 3,000 to 4,000 wins. ‘Winners are what it is about at the end of the day,’ said Johnston.
He should know. He has built a stellar career around them.