Jack Channon Takes the Reins - By Cornelius Lysaght

When the hammer came down on Lot 4 at Goffs UK’s Breeze Up sale at Doncaster in April and agent Richard Ryan signed the purchase docket on behalf of Opulence Thoroughbreds, it didn’t take too many cups of Yorkshire tea for the team to work out who’d be taking charge of the handsome bay-coloured colt. 

Being the product of a mating between the stallion Bungle Inthejungle, once a star juvenile at Mick Channon’s stables at West Ilsley in Berkshire, and Kerrys Requiem, a King’s Best mare who had also been under the care of the footballer-turned-trainer, Team Channon was clearly well-equipped, and the obvious choice, to be tasked with trying to put the youngster into racing’s premier league.

 

Our BUNGLE INTHEJUNGLE ex KERRY'S REQUIEM colt, in training with Jack Channon.

 

Mick, 74, switched sports in the 1980s after making his name playing principally for Southampton and England, at the same time ensuring his ‘windmill’ goal celebrations became as recognisable in his sixties and seventies hey-day as Frankie Dettori’s flying dismount is today.

Having started with only a handful of horses at stables in Lambourn, it was in 1999 and from the late Queen that he bought his current base – where previously the Royal trainer Major Dick Hern used the array of downland gallops to prepare twenty-five Classic race winners including Epsom Derby heroes Troy, Henbit and Nashwan – building up a formidable string comprised of all age-groups though he gained a particular reputation for an affinity with two-year-olds.

Major prizes from around Britain and Ireland and across the globe were brought home, though famously never the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in which his Youmzain finished runner-up a remarkable three times (2007-2009), prompting a good-humoured “you lucky f*****” message of congratulation to Sir Mark Prescott when Alpinista was successful on only the Newmarket trainer’s second attempt at the French feature in 2022.

Only a week or two after that characteristically colourful gesture, Mick himself reached the notable achievement of 2,500 winners – four, including the 2012 stagings of the Molecomb Stakes, Glorious Goodwood and the Cornwallis Stakes, Ascot [now Newmarket] by Bungle Inthejungle, and two by Kerrys Requiem – and announced that he would be stepping back from the helm of what had become a family operation in favour of his twenty nine-year-old son Jack.

And Channon junior, long-term assistant to his dad, has got off to a flying start saddling his initial runners on the all-weather circuit in January 2023 and seeing the winners and the big performances flowing soon afterwards, to the extent that Opulence finds itself immediately part of one of the more compelling narratives of the early weeks of the turf season.

 

Already Caernarfon has finished a fine fourth behind Mawj and Tahiyra in the 1000 Guineas at Newmarket; the three-year-old Zoffany filly Gather Ye Rosebuds, which runs in the silks of Coolmore insiders Linda Shanahan and Emily Magnier, daughter-in-law of John, has demonstrated Classic potential; while old favourite Chairmanoftheboard has put in mighty efforts to be placed in two of the campaign’s most competitive six-furlong handicaps so far, both on the Rowley Mile at Newmarket. And that is to name just three.

Interestingly, with the Opulence colt in mind, the Channons had responsibility for the dam of Gather Ye Rosebuds – Chelsey Jayne – and still have her multiple-winning half-brother Certain Lad, now aged seven, knowledge of which helped them to prepare before the filly’s arrival.

 

Jack Channon in the winner's enclosure at the Guineas Meeting this month.

As has been the case with other sons or daughters whose parents have still remained part of the set-up after handing over the training reins, Jack has been keen to emphasise in interviews that it is ‘business as usual’ and Mick continues to be prominently involved, even if “when there is a 50:50 decision I get the deciding vote now.”

However, the change has of course brought with it a new energy as well as new ideas including talk of exploring scientific advancements. Exciting times indeed.

Mick Channon’s route from the top of football to the higher echelons of racing is one of the best stories in modern sporting history; he is keen that the windmill keeps on turning, and certainly it feels as though it’s in safe hands. Let’s hope the Opulence newcomer can play its part too – shares and the chance to name him remain available.