Speaking exclusively with BOYLE Sports, Racing trainer Charlie Johnston has expressed his scepticism regarding the suitability of team-based formats in Horse Racing.
The trainer, based in North Yorkshire, also criticised tracks for their over-watering of surfaces, which he believes is negatively impacting the performance of horses and the appeal of the sport.
Charlie also reflects on working with his father and his veterinary background before becoming a trainer.
Team Formats Don’t Work!
I don't think they do in all honesty, even though we won the trainer’s prize at the Shergar Cup! Apart from Ian Williams and Jamie Osborne, I probably have more runners in the Racing League than anyone else.
But it is purely driven out of prize money. That is why my horses are there. As I was discussing with an owner the other day, his horse could have gone to Pontefract on Sunday and race for £10,000 or go to the Racing League and run for £35,000.
It was a pretty straightforward decision.
I could be wrong, but I would be surprised if there are many people following the team aspect of the Racing League. For instance, it’s hard to build an affinity. Take Wales and the West, for example. Most of the participants aren't from Wales and the West anyway.
Even if you were from that region and you wanted to support them, you'd look at your list of trainers and jockeys and think, they aren’t from around here. Team Ireland is mainly trainers from Britain, so what’s the point?
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AI Will Impact Racing
It’ll have an impact everywhere in life. Once upon a time, we got James Willoughby, who’s not quite as clever as AI but is not far off it, to devise a programme for us to compare the strength of races to decide where we ran horses where they have multiple options. So we have sort of looked at that to an extent already.
In terms of the actual training of horses, I guess in a way, AI is, in many cases, all it's doing is taking all the data that you already know is there, but giving you an answer quicker than it takes you to find it.
Good To Firm Ground Is Best For Racing!
I don’t know if I’m being too cynical or if I've listened to my Dad too much. So, people are saying the temperature this year is hotter than last year and hotter since records began. But records only began 60 years ago. And the Earth has been around for millions of years. Is it not just part of a natural cycle?
It's certainly been noticeable this year that I have used my grass gallops less than ever before because they have been like concrete for much of the last five months. In terms of the racecourses, they're far too cautious about producing fast ground, and a lot of them generally overwater quite dramatically. The best racing is on fast ground.
Which meetings have been most memorable this year? Ascot and Newmarket, that were on fast ground. Goodwood was adversely affected by the fact that we were on soft ground, and as a result, the best horse probably wasn’t always winning. I have an ongoing battle on a daily basis with tracks for overwatering and for being scared to produce good to firm ground, which is the best ground.
Working With Father “Challenging”
It can certainly be challenging in the sense that we are a family who have worked together for the best part of 15 years, so there's a lot of pressure in that environment.
The easiest way I explain it to people now is that he has largely sort of gone up to the Boardroom in a sense. He is very much running Johnston Racing as a company, but in terms of deciding what gallops this morning and what we declare, he has no input into that.
For sure, I'll still ask him to look at horses with whom we have issues with and ask his opinion on what he thinks we should do with certain horses. But largely, I'm in a quite fortunate position. There's a lot of tasks that are fairly low down the list of things that trainers enjoy doing that he does.
I get left largely to do training of the horses and running the horses. I'm the manager with the players! I want to keep it that way for as long as I can.
Inheritance Tax Could Create Problems
Yes. One of the things that Dad's original business partner, Brian Palmer, brought in is that it's a very professionally run business. We have a board meeting once a quarter, and that's the sort of thing that would come up in those meetings, in those conversations.
In the short term, what can you do? Mum and Dad have been investing in Kingsley Park for the last 20 years to make it into what it is today. Certainly, it is something that we'll have to bear in mind for the future.
It's difficult anyway with establishments like this, in that you've created a kind of a white elephant, in that you would struggle to name on one hand the people that would be in the market for a property like this.
We've created a 300-acre establishment that's purely designed for horses, and as it stands today, you need to have enough of 150 horses just to make it pay. As a result, there won't be too many people in the market for a place like this.
Doing Veterinary To Become A Trainer
That talent is very unilateral in the family. Mum and Angus are very talented, me and Dad, very much less so. I did veterinary at university, but that was very much as a means to becoming a trainer.
Before that, at school, I would be very mathematically minded and did maths and further maths at A-level. What route that would have taken me down, I don't know, but that was the subject that I was most into.
Dream Dinner Party
They would have to be fairly sport-oriented because that's what I'm most interested in outside of racing. Jonny Wilkinson he is a fascinating character, and I’d enjoy talking to him. Ronan O'Gara. I love when he does his team talks and switches between languages. I'd spend all day watching clips of Roy Keane and would like him, but he probably wouldn’t want to be there!
And then, probably someone like Kevin Bridges, the comedian, just in case the other four of us were too boring. He would at least make it entertaining. I love rugby. I haven’t played since Christmas. Over the past five years, I have played less and less as work has got busier. It is not something I want to let go. It is probably the only outlet I have from racing.
After the Lions tour this summer, it sounds pretty sad, but I’ve been thinking about where the Lions would be in 2053 because that's about the first one I think I might have the chance to go on and be away from Middleham in the month of July!
I went to Japan for a few games and the quarter-final games of the World Cup in 2019. I went to France in 2023 and the Ireland v New Zealand game in Paris. I will definitely try and go to Australia in a couple of years’ time for the World Cup.
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