Speaking exclusively with BOYLE Sports , top trainer Charlie Johnston has revealed how the input of legendary jockey Frankie Dettori helped shape stable flagbearer Ancient Egypt 's trip Stateside for Amo Racing .
Johnston has explained why big owners have scaled back their interests in the sport, reviewed a satisfactory Goodwood Festival , and assessed how the relationship with Amo Racing owner Kia Joorabchian is developing despite the winners not yet flowing.
The Middleham handler has also detailed why Ancient Egypt heads to Saratoga for a $750,000 pot, and explained the stable jockey situation following the retirements of Franny Norton and Joe Fanning .
The Stable Today
Have Big Owners Scaled Back Their Interest?
We certainly have fewer horses. I hope, and I would like to think, that this is a reflection on the market rather than a reflection on my training and my results. Certain big owners have scaled back their interests for other reasons. I guess there was always a likelihood that at the point when he finished, he had 5,000 winners, and when I started, I had zero.
I was never going to have exactly the same number of horses from the word go. But the key for me now is to make sure that the numbers don't continue to slide and ideally grow them back to where they were before, which was well north of 200 at its peak. I know it might sound crazy, but I do think you need 200-plus now to compete in the top ten trainers. So, it's about trying to work our way back to a position where we have those kinds of numbers. We have about 150 horses. Turnover for a yard like ours would be between £6 million and £7 million.
We have felt that people have tightened their belts a little bit over the last couple of years. Where some people might previously have had two horses, they now have only one. There certainly aren't owners growing on trees at this moment in time! It is competitive out there with a lot of trainers fighting for a smallish group of owners.
Goodwood Review
How Do You Assess Your Goodwood Festival?
I look back on it as a satisfactory week in the round. We had eighteen runners in total in the end and only one of those that I can think of, off the top of my head, started at a single-figure price. It was not like we were taking down a big string of well-fancied horses. While I felt there were enough horses going down there with good chances, there weren't many that I was going down there with thinking this could or should win. The meeting has certainly got more competitive over the last few years. The handicap fields generally speaking have got bigger and more competitive.
The key objective was to make sure we got on the board, which we did with Sword Salute at 28-1, having not done so last year. We had a couple of horses run very nice races in defeat, the likes of Venetian Lace and Evanesco , while Pikachu ran reasonably well. There were a couple of disappointments, Lazy Griff probably the most high-profile of them. It was a funny race. Obviously, the start was very messy with Hector Crouch falling off. It was a race that beforehand I thought I knew exactly how it would pan out, with Trawlerman going forward, Illinois going to sit second, and we would sit just behind them. The next minute there are loose horses, and Trawlerman is out on the outside getting hampered.
Our horse was surprisingly keen, something that I would never have envisaged, particularly after his last run at Sandown where he was behind the bridle. To go from that to then being keen and overracing for the first half of the race was a surprising turnaround. We've got to get back on track with Lazy Griff now, and I think he could go again on Saturday week for a listed race. If we could get back on track, then the Irish St Leger would be back on the table. It would be a little bit difficult to go there as things stand off the back of a run like that. We felt we now needed to try and sandwich in a run in between now and Ireland , and Chester fitted nicely time-wise.
Amo Racing
Why Does Ancient Egypt Head to Saratoga?
He's due to run next Saturday in Saratoga in the Christophe Clement Turf Stakes , a mile and a half turf Grade 1 . He could have gone to the Voltigeur at York , and I did think about that for a while, but the fact that he just got beaten a short head in a Group 1 last time showed me he belongs in that kind of company. And generally speaking, the American turf horses are at a good level lower than ours. It's a $750,000 race, so it is worth having a go. We'll either look very clever or very stupid! Hopefully, it's the former.
What Input Did Dettori Have in the Trip?
Frankie is there for input when required. Ancient Egypt 's campaign is a perfect example of that. When we were looking at the race in America and given the nature of American racing and how different their tracks and racing is to ours, we felt it would be best to use a local jockey. When it came to deciding who that should be, I was in a sort of multi-way WhatsApp call with Kia and Frankie and a couple of others to discuss who we thought was best to ride him.
Frankie 's advice was taken, given he has so much knowledge and experience of the track and the jockeys that ride there and knows who is best suited to riding him a hundred times better than I would. So, it was a big help to be able to run through a few options with him and try and secure the right person.
Is Joorabchian Yet to See a Return on His Investment?
Perhaps Kia has not enjoyed the fruits of his expenditure yet, but it is still early days for the operation. He went out and spent a lot of money on yearlings with big pedigrees and, generally speaking, a lot of late-developing middle-distance pedigrees. They want to get involved in those big Kirsten Rausing , Juddmonte and Newsells families, which was always going to take a little bit of time. I started the year for him with four horses which are currently rated 114, 106, 99 and 87. That's an average rating of about 101.
On a personal level, the relationship has gone really well. We've got a few more horses for him now. Ancient Egypt was just touched off at Ascot ; that would have been huge for Kia to get a winner there. We all know how much he loves that, and then we just got touched off in France after that. I'd love him to win for Kia .
The Jockey Situation
Do You Have a Stable Jockey Yet?
No, we don't. It's not deliberate, just maybe more down to circumstance. There was the transition from Dad to me, and I was inheriting two jockeys that were very much at the end of their career and who have both now retired in Franny Norton and Joe Fanning . Finding a replacement for Joe is not going to be easy and straightforward, so we're using a variety of jockeys. Callum Shepherd was riding quite a bit for us at the start of the year and then proceeded to miss about four months through injury, so that went west.
Rowan Scott has been riding for us a lot in the last month or so and has had a lot of success for us; he rode our Glorious Goodwood winner. Sure enough, Rowan is now sitting out a 40-day ban for an accumulation of whip offences. Every time we've started to get on a bit of a roll with someone and got a bit of a relationship going, there's been a spanner thrown in the works. So we're sharing things around between Callum , Rowan , Jason Hart , Connor Beasley and a few others. I'm hoping that through one of those relationships, one jockey will emerge as the premier one and give us something to work with going forward.
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