Britain’s growing trend towards leading trainers going into partnership gathered more momentum with the news that Mark Johnston will be joined on the licence by his son Charlie on January 1.
The Johnstons follow John and Thady Gosden, Ed and Simon Crisford, and Paul and Oliver Cole in combining forces for the purpose of maintaining a high level of business and day-to-day personal involvement. All the aforementioned are father-son operations.
Mark Johnston welcomed the opportunity to share the training at their massive complex on the outskirts of Middleham, North Yorkshire, pointing out that son Charlie is already carrying out a major chunk of the workload.
“I feel that there should be recognition of that. He has been doing that work for the past three years,” father Mark said. “But also the time has come for Charlie to share the responsibility, as well. He has passed all his modules at the BHA, and his application has been approved.”
In an ever-changing racing world, the big strings are getting bigger. The sheer volume of horses and the consequent demands on trainers has seen several high-profile licence holders adopt the practice of taking on a partner, which has long been a popular concept in New Zealand, and more recently Australia.
Among the most famous training partnerships in Australia are Ciaron Maher and David Eustace, who have over 500 horses on their books, which are spread out over six locations — Ballarat, Cranbourne, Balnarring, Pakenham and Wangaratta in rural Victoria, as well as Sydney in New South Wales.
Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott, mainly based in Sydney, have enjoyed numerous G1 wins together, and both believe that two heads are better than one, particularly when so many horses are involved.
Bott explained, “There is a tremendous amount of pressure involved in a training operation our size. Apart from the more visible aspect of dealing with owners and the media, there is a lot to be done behind the scenes, such as arranging training schedules, programming, organising staff, looking after financial affairs and so on.
“That’s why I think training partnerships are becoming more commonplace and they have been hugely successful,” he added.
Mark Johnston is offically Britain’ winning-most trainer of all time, having sent out over 4,700 winners.