The champion trainer hopes racing can resume with a condensed schedule but knows he is luckier than many
This would normally be the start of a very busy few months for Richard Hannon, whose two big stables near
Salisbury Plain are home to lots of fast, precocious young horses. The months of April, May and June are hay-making time for trainers with that kind of stock, so the suspension of racing until at least the end of next month makes things very difficult for his operation.
“It’s hugely worrying,” says Hannon, who was champion trainer in his first season, 2014, with a licence. “These two-year-olds, you only have a certain window of opportunity. And then you’ve got the Classic generation.” But he notes the timing could have been even worse, if the coronavirus had sent
Britain into lockdown in the autumn, after Hannon had spent hefty sums buying horses at the sales and before he had sold them on to various owners.