'We're building up the Flat team - it was a huge mistake not to do it sooner'
James Burn catches up with the trainer ready for another royal rumble
Jonathan Portman was once asked if he had anything for Royal Ascot. "A good picnic," came the quick-witted reply from Lambourn's driest trainer.
There was a time when Alan King might have responded along similar lines.
The sociable King, part of the fabric of jump racing, threatened to become a superpower in that code in the 2000s when Voy Por Ustedes, Katchit and My Way De Solzen supplied him with high-profile triumphs in the Cheltenham Festival's Grand Slam events. However, Uxizandre's success in the Ryanair Chase in 2015 – when a certain Sir Anthony McCoy struck at the festival for the final time – was King's last winner at the fixture.
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Copy- 'You probably only get five proper darts at a big race each year, so you have to deliver - and I think I've got a massive chance'
- ‘I’ve never had to deal with that in my career and I did find it hard - you start asking yourself what you’re doing wrong’
- ‘I’ll be there to see the kids open their presents but then it’s a coffee, bang, out the door’ - life in a racing yard at Christmas
- ‘I miss the craic of going racing but it’s a young person’s game these days - and I don’t know how they survive, to be honest’
- 'I don't want to be part of this narrative that Irish trainers are better than us - I think that's rubbish, it drives me nuts'
- 'You probably only get five proper darts at a big race each year, so you have to deliver - and I think I've got a massive chance'
- ‘I’ve never had to deal with that in my career and I did find it hard - you start asking yourself what you’re doing wrong’
- ‘I’ll be there to see the kids open their presents but then it’s a coffee, bang, out the door’ - life in a racing yard at Christmas
- ‘I miss the craic of going racing but it’s a young person’s game these days - and I don’t know how they survive, to be honest’
- 'I don't want to be part of this narrative that Irish trainers are better than us - I think that's rubbish, it drives me nuts'