Speaking exclusively with BOYLE Sports, Racing trainer Charlie Johnston has praised the team at York track for he considerable improvements made in this last decade.
The trainer, based in North Yorkshire, also discusses his racing team for the York Ebor meeting, including Timeforshowcasing, Benny Nahar, and Dutch Decoy.
Elsewhere, Johnson says it’s ”No Surprise” Willie Mullins could look further into flat racing and says that the racecourses have too much power.
York A Fantastic Track
It's a meeting that, in the past, for us was maybe a bit of an afterthought, although that might be going a bit far! Ascot and Goodwood were always the meetings that we really circled in the calendar to really target. But in the last 10 years or so, this meeting at York has gone from strength to strength.
The prize money that they've pumped into the meeting with every race worth £100,000. It's a lot more in our focus now. With the extra prize money now the races are very, very competitive now and tough to win. I’ll have somewhere in the region of a dozen runners across the four days, and it would be nice to get one on the board.
It's a fantastic track. Aside from Cheltenham, I wouldn't go racing without a runner. I'd go racing probably 200 days a year as it is. But in the event that I didn't have a runner at York on Saturday, which thankfully I will do, it's probably the only flat track that I would go to socially.
It's a great atmosphere, and plenty of local people will be going for those four days. At a time in the sport when there are lots of headwinds and issues and a lot of racecourses crying about a lot of things, York shows them that it can be done. It has the right approach to things, and it's a shame a few more don't take a leaf out of their book.
My Ebor Meeting Team
Timeforshowcasing in the Lowther. She's certainly one of the key horses for the week. It's going to be a big jump up in class, and I would be lying if I said that I knew she was definitely up to it. We're all going to learn something next week, but she's a filly that we've always liked at home. Physically, she's a very nice filly despite her fairly mediocre yearling price. She won at Newbury in the style of a horse that had a lot more to give. The Lowther will be a bit of a baptism of fire.
Eagle Thunder And Benny Nahar
Eagle Thunder won't make it. Benny Nahar is in the sales race, but he's run twice so far. Both of those have been over seven furlongs. So, I would say if we saw him next week, it's probably more likely to be in the Convivial Maiden Stakes. He has had two very good runs, frustrating that he hasn't broken his maiden before now. He was just touched off at Haydock last week.
The Clipper? Dutch Decoy, Urban Sprawl, Arisaig and Marhaba Ghaiyyath
I am not sure yet who will turn up.
Urban Sprawl actually ran (Thursday) in the Racing League, so he'd need to run well to be reappearing there next week. And Dutch Decoy runs at Newmarket tomorrow night. He has developed a bit of a love affair with Newmarket's July course. I think he's now five from seven over that course and distance and won twice there in July, so it made sense for him to go back there. He’s a horse that takes his racing well, so I wouldn't rule out that he turns up next week if he runs well tomorrow.
Arisaig is another with a few options in that she's also in the celebration mile at Goodwood next Sunday.
She’s a filly stuck a little bit between a rock and a hard place. She's rated 96, 97 now. So, she can compete in all these big handicaps, but there's always the lure for owner-breeders like Chasemore Farm that she should be trying to pick up some valuable black type. We'll just have to weigh up the options for her to see where she goes.
Marhaba Ghaiyyath is probably going to be one of the tougher decisions next week. He has run two very good races in defeat at the July festival and at Glorious Goodwood. I would say, at the moment, probably Dutch Decoy is actually the most likely of them to run.
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Align the Stars In The Ebor.
He's more likely to run in the Stayers' race on Wednesday. His owner, Tony Farmer, is very much a York man, lives locally and would love to have a runner in an Ebor. On his form last year, he's a horse that deserves to be an Ebor. On current form, he hasn't quite been running to that level so far this year, and I would imagine that the two-mile race on the Wednesday will probably be a slightly softer spot for him.
Artisan Dancer is also in the stayers’ race. He's shown he’s up to winning the competitive handicap off his current mark. There's a valuable race on the Thursday and I could possibly run Champion Island in that. He finished third in the Goodwood Nursery.
Just A Girl could join him. She wouldn't really have been on the York radar until Saturday night when she won a maiden in Lingfield by seven lengths. She impressed with the manner in which she did it.
Flat Goal For Willie Mullins “No Surprise”
I'm sure they've always done it to an extent, but probably led by Willie, it certainly feels like it's becoming a much more regular occurrence in the last four or five years. I’m sure if you’re one of the other big jumps trainers based in Ireland and you're watching what Willie’s doing, you and your owners are probably thinking, ‘Why aren’t we doing the same?’
The yearling sales and Flat breeding in general is going down the precocity and sharper horses route. Willie's got a lot more horses bred to stay those days, and there's some very valuable races there that maybe aren't quite as deep as they once were. So it’s no surprise to see them trying to take advantage of an opportunity.
Racecourses Have Too Much Power
Lord Allen’s met with a lot of people, so he's clearly doing his due diligence and listening to a lot of people. I just hope he's talking to the right ones.
From a horseman’s perspective, the concern and struggle recently has been that the racecourses have too much power. We can all see how a lot of the racecourses are being run, and the sport in general is being run, and it is detrimental to our business and our future. Hopefully, he can re-address that balance.
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