They are hard to come by these days and even harder to get hold of, but Mick Channon is a sporting icon.

Once a top-notch international footballer, he has since elevated himself to the upper echelons of racehorse trainers. He’s a busy man, and pinning him down for a chat is as hard now as it once was for opponents to catch him on the football field.

Back in the day, it was his pace, turns and tricks on the ball that made Channon so elusive during stints with Southampton (he’s still their highest goal-scorer with more than 200 goals), Manchester City, Norwich, Portsmouth and England (21 goals in 46 games).

These days he’s preoccupied with the demands of over 130 horses, their owners, an army of staff – just looking after the gallops where the horses strut their stuff in morning training is a fulltime job for five people – and a multitude of inquiring media types on hand seven days a week. As Channon puts it, ‘It’s like having a classroom full of kids.’

RISING TO THE TOP

The 57-year-old is, of course, the man at the helm of West Ilsley Stables, an oasis of charm and tranquillity despite its proximity to the roaring traffic of the A34. Channon took out a training licence in 1990, tasting his first Group 1 success with Piccolo way back in 1994 at York, but it’s been since buying the yard from The Queen in 1999 that his fortunes have truly gone stellar.

Head out Newbury way and it’s easy to see how West Ilsley’s space and facilities have been key ingredients in his development as a trainer, but there’s more to it than that. It is, famously, where Dick Hern prepared such illustrious horses as Brigadier Gerard, Henbit, Troy and Nashwan to land a string of top prizes. Visitors can’t miss the brass nameplates of those horses – along with many others from racing’s folklore – still attached to the relevant stables in the yard. It’s something in which Channon clearly takes pride.

‘My late dad, an old cavalry man, polished them every day until he died. He was a real royalist, like me. Dad now has his own remembrance seat in the middle of the stables where The Queen used to walk,’ he says.

And Channon is certainly doing justice to the yard’s proud heritage. The last few years have been phenomenal for him. In 2002, he topped the 100-winner mark for the first time, ending the season with 123 winners and more than £1.5 million in prize money, followed by 143, 98 and 105 winners in the following seasons. The past five (including this) have seen him earn over £7m in prize money for his owners, including familiar names from his previous career such as Kevin Keegan, Alan Ball and Sir Alex Ferguson. Admittedly, a British Classic winner is still missing from Channon’s CV – though 2003’s second to Refuse To Bend in the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket came tantalisingly close – but there’s no questioning the degree of Channon’s success.

He’s come a long way since his footballing days. The round-the-clock nature of the trainer’s life may account for the short grey thatch that has replaced the long, dark locks which once symbolised his hanging-out-shirt-and-rolled-down-socks style. But whether it was moneyed contacts, a knack of translating wisdom from the pitch to the track, or just the self-confidence all top-level sportsmen have, Channon’s two careers are closely interwoven. Even when talking horses you get the impression he still draws on his football experience.

‘If you stuck 100 people in a room, you can bet your life that 10% will have something wrong with them and that 30% or 40% are on medication. It’s no different with horses. Especially what we do to them,’ says Channon.

‘We put bits of steel in their mouth and chimpanzees on their back and then expect them not to have problems.’

MONKEY BUSINESS

‘You could say it’s a bit of a miracle getting them to the track, but really horses are like human beings, they are pretty hardy. So, with a helping hand, things tend to sort themselves out. We just have to get on with it.’

If football has perhaps been a cornerstone of Channon’s success, is it more than coincidence that his attitude to gambling is the polar opposite of footballing contemporaries such as Stan Bowles, who blew fortunes at the bookies? ‘Backing horses doesn’t really appeal to me. I do my gambling when it comes to picking out the young horses to buy. That’s when I take a punt. We have bought some good ones along the way,’ says Channon, adding wryly, ‘but you don’t tend to hear about the bad ones.’

Buying horses isn’t his only source of new talent. The breeding game – an interest that long pre-dates his training career – seems to be in Channon’s bones. He tells a lovely tale of how he celebrated winning the 1976 FA Cup with the Saints after beating Manchester United 1-0. While his team-mates enjoyed the post-match dinner with ever-increasing high spirits, Channon did a runner with then-wife Jane to watch the birth of one of the first foals he’d bred – Royal Final.

‘My brother Phil had been looking after things at my stud farm and rang to say “Never mind a little thing like the FA Cup Final, get your arse down here to watch this beautiful birth”. She never won a race but eventually gave birth to a great jumper called Ghofar who won the Hennessy Gold Cup.’

Dig a little deeper and the thread between Channon’s two careers is all the more apparent. Royal Final’s mother, Blue Horizon, was one of two horses given to Channon as a gift from none other than Saints chairman Herbert Blagrave, himself a well-established racing trainer and breeder.

‘The difficulty is getting your team together, especially the good quality horses,’ muses Channon. ‘Finding the good horses is like scoring goals. There’s no point in having top midfielders if you have got nobody to stick the ’effing ball in the net. We have been put into a box that we tend to train a lot of two-year-olds, and I don’t knock that. But two-year- olds don’t win a lot of money. Older horses win the good money.

‘Probably the easiest race to win is the Derby because not many three-year-olds stay a mile-and-a-half and not many are top class – it’s just trying to find the right horse in the first place is a nightmare. Once you have got a good mile-and-a-half horse, there are good races and good money to be won with them. That also applies to the stayers.’

STEPPING BADDAM UP

He knows what he’s talking about too, as anyone who recalls this year’s Royal Ascot meeting – when Channon sent out Baddam to win twice in four days – can testify. He galloped a total of five miles and two furlongs to win the Ascot Stakes and the Queen Alexandra Stakes, a double success last achieved in 1978 by Mountain Cross.

‘He’s a smashing horse to have,’ says Channon with that trademark strong Wiltshire burr of his, ‘but we’ll have to step him up in class now because his handicap rating has gone up. We’ll have to look at the Doncaster Cup and the long-distance events in France like the Prix du Cadran.’

Punters may also like to take note that while he uses jockeys Ted Durcan, Chris Catlin and Sam Hitchcott more than most (‘They are good hard-working lads’), Channon also has hopes for some new talent he’s fostering. ‘I also like two young apprentices we have, Eddie Creighton and Tom O’Brien,’ he smiles.

Outside the Channon fold, ‘Ryan Moore is obviously the new kid on the block and is very good. And, of the young up-and-coming brigade, apprentice James Doyle must be a good lad. I like what I have seen of him.’

That’s surely an opinion worth listening to – as is his suggestion that unraced two-year-old filly Danzimar is one for us to follow at the end of this season and again next year. Forget the horse’s mouth – we’d rather hear from the trainer any day.