Sky Sports’ Soccer Saturday would not be the same without the off-camera shrieks and yells of the ex-pros watching the day’s big matches, but Harry Redknapp’s debut on the show this weekend could bring a fresh variation on the theme. As the 3pm kick-offs reach the half-hour mark, Redknapp’s horse Shakem Up’Arry will be cantering to post for the Betfair Hurdle at Newbury, one of the jump season’s most valuable handicaps.
“They asked me about six weeks ago with Jeff Stelling and Paul Merson and the gang, and I said I’d do it,” Redknapp says, “but I didn’t know the horse was running. I’ll have to find a way [to get out] for five minutes and make sure they’re showing a film of something else so I can watch the race, because I’m not missing it.”
The best compromise might be to let us all watch Redknapp watching the race, as Shakem Up’Arry attempts to give the former West Ham and Tottenham manager the biggest win of an ownership career that dates back nearly 40 years. His first horse, Up The Cherries, was racing – and winning - while Redknapp was managing Bournemouth in the 1980s, and his fascination with the turf goes all the way back to his East End childhood in the 50s, when cash betting was both illegal and part of everyday life.
“My nan was the bookies’ runner in our street,” Redknapp says in a media call hosted by Great British Racing. “Cyril the paper boy, he’d have been 60-odd but we still called him the paper boy, he had a little trilby hat on, always a suit with a shirt and tie, and he’d come round to our nan’s, she’d take the bets off all the old girls on our street, and she’d drop them in his bag.
“I used to come home from school for dinner and my nan was being taken up to Poplar police station in a Black Maria because it was illegal. I was six, seven, eight years of age and she’d say “your dinner’s in the oven, boy, I’ll only be an hour”. I can see her now, the police officer taking her away, but she’d be back in an hour and the next day she’d do the same thing again.
“Three tu’penny doubles and a tu’penny treble, that was the standard bet. It was all illegal, no betting shops in those days, so the only way to get the results was to sit around the radio in the evening.”
Redknapp’s racing colours are a carefully-chosen mixture of red, white and blue – “I tried to keep everybody happy, I didn’t know where I was going to be managing when the horses were running so I tried to use a bit of everything” – and it is no surprise that the names of his horses, including Saturday’s 16-1 shot, tend to come with a story attached too.
“I used to have a guy stand behind me at West Ham when I was manager,” he says, “and for 90 minutes, he’d shout right behind my dugout, “shake ‘em up, ‘arry, shake ‘em up, arry.”
“I used to come home on Saturday night after the game and all I could hear was this guy’s voice, “shake ‘em up ‘arry”, and so I thought, when I get a horse, I’ve got to call it Shakem Up’Arry. And there used to be another guy when I was playing, over in the Chicken Run [at Upton Park], he’d shout “wake up, ‘arry”, so I thought I’d better have a Wake Up Arry as well.”
Inevitably, there have been tough times to balance out the moments of triumph during Redknapp’s time as an owner, and the loss of the promising chaser Bygones In Brid in a fall in 2012 was perhaps the lowest point of all.
“I’ve lost a few nice horses,” he says. “I had a lovely horse called Bygones In Brid with Alan King that I lost at Taunton, but you know what the sport is and I love horses and animals, and I love being involved. It’s my passion, what I like to do, and having horses and going racing is my favourite pastime.
“There’s been lots of nice days, [like] winning [the King George Stakes] with Moviesta at Goodwood [in 2013]. The dream would be to have a winner at the Cheltenham Festival one day, but everyone in racing dreams of that and it’s not easy to do.”
Redknapp’s last full-time job in management ended in September 2017 when he left Birmingham City, although he has just agreed to return to Bournemouth. Jonathan Woodgate, the caretaker manager, has invited him to attend training though he insists he won’t be on the coaching staff. “He played for me at Tottenham and he’s just asked me if I’ll pop in and keep an eye on training for a few days and I said I would so I’ll look forward to that. I’ll just watch, have a chat with him, he’s a smashing guy.”
Redknapp never considered following Mick Channon’s lead by taking out a trainer’s licence. “I’m happy to have my horses with people like Ben [Pauling, Shakem Up’Arry’s trainer], they know what they’re doing,” he says. “And I certainly wouldn’t be a trainer, I wouldn’t know enough about it. It must be murder when you’re a trainer and you’ve got some busy owner telling you what you should be doing when they’ve never sat on a horse in their life.
“It’s a little bit like football when people keep coming up to you and telling you what to do and how you should be doing it. I wouldn’t have the nerve to try and train a horse.”
Kempton Park: 12.45 Nina The Terrier, 1.15 Diva's Mix, 1.45 Kentucky Hardboot, 2.15 Flic Ou Voyou, 2.50 Rose Of Aghaboe, 3.20 Mengli Khan, 3.50 Adjali, 4.20 Didtheyleaveuoutto
Taunton: 1.55 Stellar Magic, 2.30 Russian Service, 3.00 Fortunes Melody, 3.30 Eclair Surf, 4.00 Kuraka, 4.30 Goldencard, 5.00 Earth Company
Southwell: 4.45 Mukha Magic, 5.15 Love Your Work, 5.45 Craved, 6.15 Rafiot (nap), 6.45 Slowmo, 7.15 Andalaska Bear (nb), 7.45 The Retriever
Flat racing or jumping comes the same to Redknapp, though he admits to particularly enjoying “wrapping up warm at Sandown, Wincanton, Fontwell, being with the punters and having a cup of tea with all the farmers”. And if he could choose to watch any sporting event, the Champions League final included, he would opt for an afternoon at Newbury.
“I had no choice but to get into racing,” he says. “I’d come home from school when I couldn’t read, and my nan would give me a pen to pick out a couple of horses for her.
“I remember going to Ascot a few years ago and I was in a box with [leading owners] Michael Tabor and JP [McManus] and all the gang, and thinking, “what would my nan think if she could see me now?”.”
