A brace of new books worth the space in any racing library

In 1986 a young Mark Johnston, having acquired a derelict yard on the Lincolnshire coast, phoned the Jockey Club to enquire about a licence to train. He was asked what experience he had. ‘I’m a vet in practice.’ Back came officialdom’s less than encouraging reply: ‘Just because you’re a vet doesn’t mean you can train a horse.’ So furious was the combative Scot that he almost decided on the spot to go to America to test out his theories.

Fortunately for British racing, he persevered and had the cojones when the Jockey Club grudgingly offered him a jumping licence only to insist that it was a combined licence or nothing. On 23 August 2018, when Frankie Dettori rode Poet’s Society to win a York handicap, Mark’s self-belief was finally and triumphantly vindicated. As his 4,194th success, it made him the most successful British trainer ever. Typically, Frankie suggested that it should gain him a picture on the wall of the Johnstons’ downstairs loo.

It has been a long route from training a handful of horses on a beach adjacent to an RAF bombing range where if a horse got loose the planes would go away and an RAF jeep would help them catch it, not to mention from Johnston’s boyhood in an East Kilbride council house and teenage years training whippets. In 1988 the Johnston team of 13 horses moved to a dilapidated 39-box yard in Middleham, where Mark and his wife, Deirdre, having survived early financial perils that could have bankrupted them, now preside with son Charlie over an equine empire of three yards and a staff of 230 capable of coping with 270 horses.

What some forget is that although Mark has lacked the depth of quality horsepower required to win trainers championships based on prize money collected, he would, if the title went with the number of winners trained, have been champion trainer on at least a dozen occasions.