Remarkable – Mark Johnston trains 5000th Winner

News | 24th August 2022

Mark Johnston has become the first trainer in British racing history to train 5,000 winners.

Yorkshire-based trainer Mark Johnston achieved the incredible milestone of 5000 career winners when Dubai Mile won the British Stallion Studs EBF Restricted Novice Stakes at Kempton Park.

The win came more than 35 years after Hinari Video gave him his very first winner at Carlisle in 1987 in the season when the qualified vet had taken the plunge to start training racehorses. Mark has been breaking records ever since.

The proud Scot is the most successful trainer in the long history of the sport. He passed Richard Hannon Snr’s record total of 4,193 winners when Poet’s Society won on the Thursday of York’s Ebor Festival in 2018.

RECORD BREAKER AND TRAILBLAZER

Mark’s career has been one of unparalleled success. He was the first British Flat trainer to rack up 200 winners in a calendar year when he achieved the feat in 2009. To prove that wasn’t a fluke, he’s notched up a double-hundred of winners nine times since.

Now training under a joint-licence with Charlie, one of his two sons, there has been plenty of quality to match the astonishing quantity of winners.

Mister Baileys gave Mark his first British Classic winner when landing the 1994 Qipco 2000 Guineas. He added a second when star filly Attraction won the Qipco 1000 Guineas ten years later. In that golden summer of 2004, Attraction, who had a most unorthodox way of galloping, added the Irish 1000 Guineas, Coronation Stakes and Sun Chariot Stakes to her impressive haul.

The same year, perhaps, his best horse arrived on the scene. Shamardal went through his two-year-old season unbeaten. His three victories included Goodwood’s Group 2 Vintage Stakes and the Group 1 Dewhurst Stakes at Newmarket before he was snapped up to join Godolphin in a big-money deal.

Mark has had particular success with stayers. Double Trigger, Royal Rebel (twice) and Subjectivist all landed the Gold Cup at Royal Ascot, while Jukebox Jury dead-heated for the Irish St Leger.

And with the relentless pursuit of 6,000 winners having already started, there’s a fair chance no one ever will.

Running the country’s most prolific racing yard leaves little spare time but Mark has made travelling to the races easier. He holds a pilots licence and often flies high above the traffic jams to get to the track.

No trainers fly as high as Mark – metaphorically and quite literally – as he stands alone in the 5,000- winner club.