Behind the mask /Johnston recalls humble roots on Desert Island Discs
Mark Johnston has talked of his rise to become Britain’s winning-most racehorse trainer on the Flat from the humble beginnings of a council estate in East Kilbride.
Appearing on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs yesterday, the 60-year-old Glaswegian, in conversation with Lauren Laverne, also touched on the time he thought he might have to quit and on his relationship with his wife, Deirdre.
Johnston hails from a family with no prior experience with horses or connections to racing. Despite this, Johnston became enamoured with the sport after joining his father on weekend trips to the bookmakers shop.
“I suppose that’s what first got me hooked,” he told Laverne.
“The turning point was when my dad bought a horse and put it in training when I was about 14 and then he also dabbled with breeding horses.
“He was buying at the lowest level. I think the first mare he bought was 110 guineas and he would send them to cheap stallions and dream of breeding a Derby winner. He didn’t even breed a selling plate winner, sadly.
“I often joke that he taught me how not to do it – in fact he certainly did teach me how not to do it – but he passed his passion for it on to me and that’s what made me decide at quite an early age that training horses was what I wanted to do.”
Having spent his childhood initially in Glasgow and then latterly in East Kilbride, one of Johnston’s selections was a song he felt captured the culture of the city – fellow Glaswegian Paolo Nutini’s 2009 hit Pencil Full of Lead.
Johnston’s first Classic winner was the colt Mister Baileys, who won the 2000 Guineas at Newmarket in 1994 after claiming the
Royal Lodge Stakes at the same track and the Vintage Stakes at Goodwood the previous season.
Asked by Laverne if the victory was a game-changer for the trainer, who was at that point based in Lincolnshire and under significant financial strain, he replied: “It was a game-changer, very much a game-changer.
“We could buy another yard and we could keep going. It was onwards and upwards from there, but that was a very sticky period in the early nineties. We had borrowed quite a lot of money from the bank and it was very, very tight. We were in serious trouble and that was the point we thought it was going to end. We couldn’t afford to stop – we had to have runners, we had to have winners.”
One of Johnston’s most prolific horses was the ten-times winner Attraction, who was victorious in a procession of Group races, including both the English and Irish Guineas in 2004. “Her limbs were sort of off-set at the knees and she had this shuffling gait,” he said of the filly. “She won first time out. She won again on her second start, then she went to Royal Ascot and won a Group Three race and then to Newmarket and won a Group Two race. This is all as a two-year-old. “After that she fractured a hind pedal bone and there were grave doubts through that winter as to whether she’d come back as a three-year-old and continue to race. So we decided we’d shoot straight for the big one and go straight to the 1000 Guineas at Newmarket.”
Johnston cites the race as one of the few times he has been affected by the pressure of training and the expectations of owners. “There are those big races where you really believe you’ve got the best horse and you’ll be disappointed if it comes second. I would feel that I had done something wrong, I was certainly nervous when Attraction went to the 1000 Guineas,” he said.
Johnston, who chose Alexandre Dumas’ adventure novel The Count of Monte Cristo as his book of choice and a pair of binoculars as his luxury item, dedicated one of his song selections to his wife and business partner, Deirdre.
Picking the track Romeo and Juliet by Dire Straits, Johnston said: “Looking back, I don’t know how anybody can do it without a partner that works in the business. I certainly couldn’t have done it without her.”