Mark Johnston becomes first trainer to saddle 5,000 winners in Britain

Mark Johnston, the winningmost trainer in Britain, reached 5,000 winners at Kempton on Wednesday evening as he added another landmark to his collection.

Johnston, who has been training since March 1987, reached the total when Danny Muscutt guided Dubai Mile to victory in the opening juvenile novice.

Johnston, whose son Charlie joined him on the licence this year, reached his 5,000th winner four years after surpassing Richard Hannon snr's record-breaking tally of 4,193 winners in Britain, when Poet's Society won at York under Frankie Dettori on August 23, 2018.

"It's obviously a bit different from breaking the record in 2018," said Johnston when assessing the significance of his latest milestone.

"You could say no-one has reached 4,194 winners, so it's not as if I'm breaking new ground, it's just another landmark and setting the bar higher for people to try to reach.

"The main thing is the whole business revolves around winners and a lot of winners means a lot of happy owners. Hopefully we can continue doing the same thing."

Mark Johnston now shares the training licence with his son CharlieCredit: John Grossick (racingpost.com/photos)

Reflecting on his life before recording 140 British Group winners and 47 Royal Ascot victories, Johnston said: "I came to Middleham with 13 horses and said straight away my ambition was to train Classic winners.

"A lot of people laughed at me and there was a lot of naivety there at the time. I thought the 42 boxes would last a lifetime but that I would train Classic winners. It wasn't very long before we did. The ambition to train top-class Flat horses was there from the outset and it's the same now as when I started."

Johnston's best season came in 2019 when he sent out 249 winners, earning £5,399,661 in prize-money.

However, a Covid-19 interrupted season followed the year after, and Johnston said: "We still had more winners than anybody else [during Covid], but not as many as our peak, so that's been difficult.

"The first year of Covid-19 there were two less months of racing, but we had the same number of horses. We've got fewer horses now so targets like 200 winners per year become harder to achieve. So long as we can remain the most consistent winner-producing stable in the country, that's the main thing."

Mark Johnston statistics

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