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A poor Royal Ascot following on from a disastrous Epsom, where you could count the horses his charges neat home on one hand. I make the scores on the doors for the two meetings: twenty runners, twenty unplaced
It’s not as though his stable are out of form, they’ve been running in the characteristic Johnston style elsewhere. What has gone wrong? Did those nasty comments from down under get to him? Do his charges get big race nerves these days?
Puzzling indeed.
Why don’t you ask the great man himself, Glenn?
I believe he posts on this forum…
Hello,
Mark Johnston’s horses were approximately "six weeks behind" at the start of the season.
In my opinion I don’t feel that the stable are firing anywhere just yet, just the odd good result. Come mid July I believe the winners will be pouring in!regards,
doyley
I actually backed his Derby Day runners as he usually has at least one good thing revved up ready for those high profile days. Alas, not this year.
Someone has asked the question at his forum…
Here is MJ’s response…
Best placing 4th actually (Effort) but not much consolation. I’ve never blamed the ‘virus’ so I’m not going to start here.
Difficult to tell. We must be doing something wrong.
In fact, few ran really badly (maybe only Captain Webb and Age of Reason – our two best hopes) but none ran quite well enough.
Currently hovering around the 30% place mark which is, by our standards, just below acceptable but no getting away from the fact that we aren’t banging in the winners.
Poor performance syndrome is how I used to describe it. Not sure what starts it but, when you don’t win when expected, all the form lines are broken and it is hard to place the horses properly. Especially true with the 2yo’s at present.That’s an honest self-appraisal from the man and it’s to his credit.
Hard work has got him to where he is now and hard work will get him out of this temporary malaise.
Does he give interviews on TV anymore? Havent had sight nor sound of him on the box for ages.
I think he refuses to talk to the dedicated racing channels because of their support for 48-hour decs and he famously abandoned his column in the Post because he disagreed with the paper’s campaign for stable staff. He’s been very foolish in my view. The Post was a good platform for him and he’d have been much better off keeping the column and making his arguments in it. He’s restricted instead to the Kingsley Klarion which isn’t quite the same.
I’ve never understood this tactic of refusing to talk to those who disagree with you.
I see he’s sticking his oar in on the mares in foal debate. Did anyone else enjoy the quote ‘The best guide for a punter as to how a horse will run in the form’. Still I guess you can’t expect him to have said ‘ The best guide as to how my horses will run is their graph on betfair in the last 5 minutes to post time.’
GHIZLAAN (USA)
($600,000) 3rd foal, half-sister to Stage Luck, 1m winner at 3 in US; dam top-class multiple winner at around 7-9f at 2-3 in US, winner of Santa Anita Oaks, half-sister to quite useful Box Of Jewels
YOR 13/10/07 16:20 9/10 Class 3
Today PON 4:45 – 6/7 Class 5.Off to see the stallion now methinks
Backing two runners is the relentless pursuit of value. Backing each way is a shortcut to the poor house. Only 7% make a long term profit.
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