Injuries and bad ground have conspired to ensure that there will be fewer true champions on the grassy side of the running rail at Ascot’s Qipco British Champions Day than the organisers would hope. In the paddock, however, the presence of at least one champion is assured. Whatever the results – and he has live contenders in both the Champion Stakes and the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes – Richard Hannon seems certain to achieve the rare feat of becoming Flat racing’s champion trainer in his first season with a licence.
Bright, cheerful and always bubbling with enthusiasm, Hannon can seem at times like a figure from the distant and probably mythical days of the sport when it was all just a bit of fun. Even in adversity on Friday, as he saw three fancied horses, including two strong favourites, beaten in the three Group One races on Future Champions Day here, his positive outlook did not desert him. “It won’t do me any harm, will it?” Hannon said as Estidhkaar, the favourite for the Dewhurst Stakes, was led away after finishing fourth of the six runners. “That’s life. We’ve still got air in our lungs.”
Despite his sporting and easy-going manner, though, few stables in the country come close to the Hannon operation in terms of the number of runners they send out and not one can match his when it comes to blending quantity with quality. He may not have come away from Newmarket with a Group One winner but sheer weight of numbers should ensure that he finishes ahead of John Gosden and Aidan O’Brien, even if he draws a blank on Champions Day too.
It has been a season of firsts for Hannon already. His first Classic as a trainer after taking over from his father, Richard Sr, at the end of last year produced a 40-1 winner in the 2,000 Guineas in Night Of Thunder, who stayed on strongly to beat the favourite, Kingman. His first runner at Royal Ascot was Toronado, also a winner in the Queen Anne Stakes.
And there still remains a possibility, slim but far from impossible, that he will be the first trainer in history to win £5m in a single campaign.
To breach the £5m mark on Saturday, Hannon would need to saddle a winner and a runner-up in the two feature races at Ascot but he has the runners to do so if all falls right. Night Of Thunder is expected to start favourite for the QEII, while Toormore, one of last year’s best juveniles, is a decent second‑string. Pether’s Moon is an outsider for the Champion Stakes, but he is proven on heavy ground and on a day like this there is always a chance that an ability to act on the turf will be enough.
Anything close to an acceptable afternoon should ensure that Hannon goes past his father’s record prize‑money total of £4,532,465, which he set last year. That would be impressive enough for a first-season trainer, for all that Hannon Jr was a leading figure in the operation for several seasons before taking over the licence, and an achievement that seemed unlikely just a few weeks ago.
At the end of August, with most of the major Festival meetings in the form book, Hannon was rated a 7-2 chance to take the trainers’ championship, with John Gosden long odds-on at 1-6. Barely six weeks later, in early October, Paddy Power closed their book, with Hannon at 1-9. Gosden had suffered a significant blow when Kingman, the probable favourite for the QEII, was retired after suffering an injury but the massed ranks from Hannon’s two bases near Salisbury Plain would probably have swept him aside in any case.
“It’s been a fabulous year and we’ve got a lot of nice horses to look forward to next year,” Hannon said. “These ones today haven’t run as planned and that’s disappointing, but we’ll turn the page.
“Ivawood [second when odds-on for the Middle Park Stakes] ran a good way and we can’t be too disappointed, he just didn’t quicken on the soft ground like he normally does. We’ll take him to the Guineas [next May] and he’ll take a lot of beating.”
Nearly 300 horses have run for Hannon this year and he has more horses than any other trainer running in the colours of Sheikh Joaan al-Thani’s al-Shaqab Racing, one of the biggest‑spending owners of recent years. He seems poised to dominate the championship for seasons to come, unless one of his Newmarket rivals can raise their head count.
“Night Of Thunder has a great chance at Ascot on Saturday and he will love the ground,” Hannon said. “We’ve been pleased with his work coming in to the race and he’s got a great chance. Toormore is due to run a big race too, he’s moving great and I think he’s better than he showed in Turkey [last month].
“One of them might put a smile on my face, but I’ll be smiling anyway, don’t worry.”
