We’re in that fallow period between the Cheltenham Festival and Aintree’s Grand National meeting, writes Tony Stafford. Not much happens although this time round my wish to see a horse go off odds on for the National early next month will not happen. Inothewayurthinkin was taken out of the race last week.
No doubt JP McManus thinks his other 7yo, Iroko, trained by Josh Guerriero and Oliver Greenall, can do the job in the Gold Cup winner’s place. That seems to be the wayhesthinkin, and with another five also potentially in the eventual line-up, it could be one more for the man whose support for racing and trainers in his native Ireland and the UK knows almost no bounds.
He has last year’s winner I Am Maximus at the top of the weights for Willie Mullins and, a bit lower down, Perceval Legallois, trained by Inothewayurthinkin’s handler Gavin Cromwell.
Gavin has played an almost classical National hand with this eight-year-old, picking up the 27-runner Paddy Power (formerly Leopardstown Chase) over 3m over Christmas and then snaffling another big pot on the same track in a hurdle race over 3m at the Dublin Racing Festival in early February.
Had that been a chase it would have put him into the stratosphere but, like Iroko (10st11lb), he has a nice racing weight at 10st12lb. You wouldn’t put it past JP to win the race yet again with one of these or the trio lower down the betting lists.
What did happen for me though was the always welcome arrival of the new version of Horses In Training. The 2025 book, sent kindly by Sir Rupert Mackeson of Marlborough Books and Prints, arrived a nice few days earlier than last year.
One would expect the horse population to have fallen in these troubled times as well as trainers giving up. The front cover says 522 trainers (538 in 2024) and 17,681 horses, down from 17,906, are listed, so not all doom and gloom by any means. Especially when you consider none of the massive Richard Fahey team gets a mention.
That’s also the case with several teams’ juveniles who aren’t listed, such as John and Thady Gosden’s, so the actual number will be well over 18,000. At an average of maybe between a minimum £350 a week to train the horses and, at the elite stables, nearer £700, plus Vat, and Newmarket (and other, as well as private) gallops fees, it’s remarkable how well the figures have stood up.
The Guerriero/Greenall stable houses two McManus horses other than Iroko, in Jagwar and My Noble Lord. Jagwar was the 3/1 favourite when bolting up in the Trust A Trader Plate, a 20-runner handicap chase at the Cheltenham Festival. My Noble Lord, a hat-trick scorer to end his three-year-old career with Michael Bell, struck first time of asking over hurdles but has been plodding along nicely enough at a level since then. No doubt there are bigger fish to fry with him. We know JP has plenty of patience.
The double Gs – with apologies to the Double Greens, messrs Munir and Souede – have 108 horses listed at their Stockton Hall Farm near Malpas in Cheshire, only two more than last year. Others have enjoyed spectacular increases, none more so than James Owen.
In the 2024 book, Owen had 31 horses under his control, five of them owned by the Gredley Family, including Burdett Road, also a Michael Bell graduate. He had already won his first two hurdle races for Owen and was a prime candidate at the time for a Triumph Hurdle challenge, but injury ruled that out.
He has bounced back very well to win the Greatwood Hurdle at Cheltenham and then, earlier this month, he took advantage of the general carnage of the Champion Hurdle to finish second to Golden Ace, picking up £97k for his efforts.
Later in the meeting, on Bill Gredley’s 92nd birthday, East India Dock, developed by James Fanshawe, was a hot favourite for this year’s Triumph but was beaten in a tight finish by 100/1 shot Poniros, on debut, and Lulamba.
Bell and Fanshawe, respectively with five each last year for the family, are down in numbers but do retain an involvement. Ambiente Friendly, last year’s Derby second to City Of Troy, has moved from Fanshawe to Owen, symptomatic of the way his stable strength has soared thanks to his remarkable achievements so far.
Taking out a licence for the first time in 2023, Owen didn’t have a winner until the 2023/24 jumps season when he had 38 winners. He’s up to 54 this season.
On the flat, again, there were no winners in 2023, but last year exploded to 63 victories with another 24 already in the AW phase of the 2025 campaign. My pal Mick Godderidge is happy that his syndicate horse Carlton has provided two each either side of the New Year over Chelmsford’s 1m6f.
This year’s book shows that Owen’s team has multiplied exactly four-fold. The Gredley family had five listed including of course Burdett Road, but it was probably Owen’s exploits with a later arrival, the Kameko colt Wimbledon Hawkeye, that got Bill and son Tim sitting up and paying proper attention, prompting them to go all-in.
Wimbledon Hawkeye made a winning start at Kempton in late May, then after a couple of placed efforts at Group level, won the Royal Lodge (Group 2) at Newmarket. He finished off with a third place in the Wiliam Hill Futurity, a race his sire won before collecting the following year’s 2000 Guineas.
So, from having a smattering of mainly jumps horses for them in his Green Ridge stables along the Hamilton Road, now James Owen has seven older horses, including last year’s Derby runner-up. He can add to that ten three-year-olds an, astonishingly, 29 juveniles for the family. That makes it 46 of the 124 in his yard. Some compliment, but at the same time some responsibility for the former point-to-point and Arab racing trainer. Phew!
You don’t like to focus on trainers going In the other direction but I was so heartened to see after a few absences, the return to the pages of Brian Meehan’s team. The Sam Sangster Manton Thoroughbreds have been a constant over the past few years and Brian and Sam’s sales partnership has found gold many times at value prices. Brian fought back in 2024 and 2025 and now has 43 animals listed, 22 of them juveniles.
Last year, the exploits of his three-year-olds Jayarebe and Kathmandu, second in the French 1,000 Guineas, thrust him back in the headlines and it was cruel when Jayarebe collapsed and died after finishing a close seventh in the Breeders’ Cup Turf race at Del Mar. He would have had a big season in front of him as Brian had been careful not to over-race him.
That was the race Meehan had won twice previously as a trainer, including for Jayarebe’s owner Iraj Parvizi with Dangerous Midge. Parvizi renewed his acquaintance with the stable when Sam Sangster Bloodstock paid Euro 180,000 at the 2022 Arqana October Yearling sale.
Jayarebe was one of two Group 2 winners for the stable at Royal Ascot last year, the other being the juvenile Rashabar. He won the Coventry Stakes on the unfavoured far side of the track when the next nine home in a 22-horse field all came down the stands rails.
He ended his season with a staying-on neck second to the Aidan O’Brien colt Camille Pissarro in the Group 1 Jean-Luc Lagardere Stakes over seven furlongs on Arc day at Longchamp. He will no doubt be campaigned for the races this year that Isaac Shelby contested as a three-year-old in 2023, when he won the Greenham Stakes and finished second in the French 2000 Guineas.
His owners, Wathnan Racing, have retained him for breeding and he stands this year at Newsells Park Stud in Hertfordshire at a fee of £7,000.
There are so many trainers and so many good young people on the way up too. I used to see young Jack Morland at Brian’s Thursday work mornings when his father was a prominent member of the earliest Manton Thoroughbreds syndicates. Jack has made a good start and lists 15 horses in his care, with Sam Sangster the owner of the previously unraced four-year-old Farrh filly Nature’s Charm.
Sam also has a foothold in his nephew Ollie Sangster’s stable. Robert Sangster’s grandson has 59 horses under his care at his much-improved and sympathetically developed yard at Manton, just a few hundred yards from Meehan’s stables. Surprisingly, only ten juveniles are listed, but no doubt there will be some more waiting to come in from his good breeders’ connections when ready and, like everyone else, the breeze-ups at Newmarket, Doncaster, Ireland and France offer the potential for more arrivals. Let’s wish them all continued success in 2025.
-TS
