Owen Builds A Winning Team At Manor House

In the first half of this interview, in TDN yesterday, Michael Owen reflected on his transition from international football star to impresario behind one of the most ambitious training yards in Britain. But now, the same length of perspective that sustained this process is being applied to the bloodstock at Manor House Stables, where Tom Dascombe is ending the season with his highest domestic prizemoney haul to date.

Dascombe has saddled more winners only once–79, in 2012, as opposed to 64 to date this year–but the earnings in those same seasons tell of a deeper median of quality: already £750,000, compared with £604,503. And the fact that there has been no knockout contributor, while frustrating in itself, may yet be redeemed by an underlying switch of focus.

“We took the conscious decision, a while back, to start buying horses to last,” Owen explains. “Not so much the early 2-year-old types, but horses that will go on. For one thing, it can be a bit hard on owners going back to them every single year and asking for another 30, 40, 50 grand. We knew we would probably take a hit, numerically, in one year. But we were prepared to take that, and it's obviously paid dividends. We've now got a much better balance in the yard. We haven't had that flagship horse, a Brown Panther, but that means the prizemoney has been spread.”

He continues, “I think we've reached the point now where we can almost say that we've ticked that box saying that Tom is proven, the facility is proven, the staff are proven. We've shown what we can do at the highest level, given the chance, that we are capable of readying one to win a Group 1 or in Dubai. Now we obviously want to do that more and more. There's no question the yard has taken a huge step forward and I'm sure it will do the same again next year.”

Its top earners in 2016 duly include the 4-year-old Roudee (GB) (Kodiac {GB}), winner of consolation races for the historic Great St Wilfrid S. and Ayr Gold Cup; and the 3-year-old Arcanada (Ire) (Arcano {Ire}), a winner at the Ebor meeting and fourth in the Britannia H. at Royal Ascot. The nearest miss, at a higher level, was when Kachy (GB) (Kyllachy {GB}) went under by just a length despite swerving in the G1 Commonwealth Cup at Royal Ascot.

But a leopard cannot entirely change its spots, and Owen admits that the new approach left an uncomfortable void. “I didn't want to sit through April and May twiddling my thumbs and listening to everyone saying the stable had gone cold,” he says. “So I came up with this concept, the Roaring Twenties we called it: a syndicate of 20 cheap horses from day three at Donny, sales like that, with a budget of just 10 or 11 grand per horse. With a 10% stake in 20 horses, each member was going to get plenty of action, while always having the chance of selling one to recover a large part of the outlay.”

“We had one go in first time out at Newmarket and start odds-on for the Lily Agnes at Chester,” Owen explains. “In the event she didn't perform, but had she won there we might have covered the whole expense by May. So that's the dream, but even if you don't fall on that superstar then you still know everyone is going to have loads of fun. Remember it's important for the staff as well, to have horses in work in winter, horses they're getting ready. And we do tend to keep moving the horses on, if they show they're not good enough. We might stop with a couple a month, and those that are left at the end go to the Horses-in-Training Sale. It worked very well and we're going to do it again next season.”

The obvious challenge is how to strike a balance between this kind of business input, a natural corollary of Owen's hefty stake in the whole project, and those areas that remain beyond even the expertise he continues to develop, year-by-year. “In the football world, you do get chairmen who interfere and tell the manager what team to pick,” he reflects. “I'd never be one of those. Obviously I leave all the racing decisions to Tom, though if it's one of my own horses he'll talk me through the options and I will have a voice. But I think we have a pretty open relationship: we spend a lot of time together, and it becomes more of a conversation rather than a case of needing a board meeting to sort things out. Any problems Tom has, he can share with me; and any decisions I need to make, how to improve the facility and so on, I can share with him. It's the same with [business partner] Andrew Black. He's obviously farther away, but there's emails pinged about every day.”

For Owen, in fairness, the stable operates not only as a business but also, no less than in his playing days, as a source of fulfilment. The hectic schedule he interrupted for TDN featured television commitments at five matches in six days, yet he viewed the week's highlight as the chance to plan the yard's forthcoming yearling parades on that one free day. “For me, business and pleasure combine,” he says. “It's hard to say where one stops and the other starts. Going to the sales, I love to shadow Tom and [agent] Ed Sackville, to listen and watch. And I'll enjoy the social side of it, too. But when those yearlings come back to the yard it's me that's underwritten them, for an awful lot of money. And it's not just the financing. I'll be coming up with the ideas for finding owners, filling the syndicates, I'll be on the phone, and I'll be enjoying it all: even the office work, down to discussing the menu for an open day with the secretary, or where we'll put the mic, or what we'll put in the brochure or on the website. What might be work for the secretary or the trainer or the accountant doesn't feel like work to me.”

“I've just been the luckiest man in the world,” he adds. “I loved playing football. Looking back now, I can see all the travel and stress and strain, all the pressure, things you don't see at the time. But I realised early that football and racing were going to be part of my life forever, so I suppose you could say that fortune has favoured the brave. You've got to remember I was only 24 when I made this massive investment, and I'm reaping the rewards now because I don't see what I'm doing as work.”

Not that his continued involvement in soccer represents any kind of burden. Even as a youngster, Owen always felt comfortable with filmed interviews and his television work helps to keep his finger on the pulse. His management company–itself a result, no less than his own far-sighted career planning, of seeing other players losing their way–meanwhile seeks to navigate youngsters away from the pitfalls of poor or greedy advice. Established four years ago, it now has a stable of prospects largely on the books of the two big clubs in Liverpool and Manchester, respectively. Some days, indeed, Owen still wakes up and wonders what kind of manager he might have made. But he knows that the commitment would be relentless and unsparing, that he should treasure the constant engagement he finds as a father of four with three businesses.

A racing stable, after all, can play a longer game than any soccer club. Few managers are given time to build up a squad by patient increments. Owen knows that he cannot hope to compete, overnight, with the Turf's Barcelonas and Bayerns: with Coolmore, Juddmonte and company. But he is confident that he is laying the foundations to do so in the longer term.

“I'd like to think we're in the Premier League, albeit towards the bottom, producing players through the academy because we don't have as much money as the big boys,” he says. “But what I have got is more determination, more enthusiasm, more will to succeed than some of the big hitters. That's not pointing the finger at anyone in the racing game. It's just that I can't go out there and buy a yearling for three-million. But I tell you what, I'll go out there and I'll make more calls, I'll make my facilities better than anywhere, I'll make racing more fun. And if I can afford 10% of that yearling, I'll jazz up another nine people to do the same. And I can get there. That's how I see life. I can get to that top table.”

Owen continues, “You look at Southampton, at all the young talent they've brought through, the hundreds of millions they've made selling players on, to re-invest. Of course, it takes more time that way. But as it is, if our biggest owner left tomorrow I wouldn't have to lay off a single member of staff. We're not relying on anybody or anything except the foundations we've laid ourselves.”

“From our humble beginnings, with owners for only five out of 20 horses in the yard, we've now got some pretty famous colours in the yard. And you look at Richard Hannon. When I was getting interested in racing, he never had the wealthy owners, never had the sheikhs: but he had a yard of 80 to 100 horses, full of the type of yearlings we've been buying. And now he's been champion trainer, with huge owners, and Group 1 horses every year. And that's possible. I do think that's a healthy way to build, organically. Richard Fahey would be much the same. That's exactly what's in the back of my mind for the next 10 years or so. We've built to this point from nothing. Now I want us to go on and be able to challenge the big boys.”