'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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Published on 7 June 2021inInterviews
Last updated 12:13, 7 June 2021
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- 'There was a moment of rage - but he's a magnificent horse and it suits me that he's passed under the radar'
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- Paul Carberry: 'I jumped up on to the rafters. It tended to be all very strait-laced in those days, but I changed that'
- 'All of us who ply our trade training horses are dreamers - to put so much into it you must have a dream'
- 'There was a moment of rage - but he's a magnificent horse and it suits me that he's passed under the radar'
- When Patrick Mullins met Jack Kennedy: 'You could say I've been lucky - they're just broken bones and they heal'
- Richard Hannon: 'When you're dead and buried the only things you're remembered by are your Classic winners'
- Paul Carberry: 'I jumped up on to the rafters. It tended to be all very strait-laced in those days, but I changed that'