LITTLE more than two years after first taking out a licence, Newmarket handler James Owen could go into the upcoming Cheltenham Festival with a remarkable six contenders. Even harder to believe is the fact that his Green Ridge Stables also houses a number of top flat performers, headed by a leading Epsom Derby hope, Wimbledon Hawkeye, and last year’s Derby runner-up, Ambiente Friendly.

So, where has the 45-year-old suddenly emerged from and how realistic are his chances at the world’s biggest jumps fixture?

Some people are born to be trainers. Having the surname Mullins, O’Brien or Head helps immensely. Even then, immediate success is not guaranteed – Willie Mullins took almost four seasons to notch his first 50 victories (Owen took less than 18 months), while Freddy Head went nine years before getting off the mark in Group 1 company.

Owen has his own family ties in the sport, though only at a modest level. His parents, Herbie and Jennifer, were point-to-point trainers in Oxfordshire, and that is where he grew up, yearning to be a jockey, riding ponies and hunting before graduating to racing between the flags.

He rode 128 winners in points (and was East Anglian Champion Jockey in that sphere on nine occasions) plus another 14 under rules. At one juncture, having worked for trainers Tockie McKie, John White and Rod Simpson, he nearly had a spell at the famous David ‘The Duke’ Nicholson jockey academy.

Second thoughts

“Rod [Simpson] persuaded me to go to The Duke’s and I filled out all the forms,” Owen recalls. “But I didn’t want to do it and whipped round at the last minute, as I always thought that I’d be too heavy and struggle as a conditional.”

Instead, he moved to Newmarket, riding out for Ed Vaughan at the same time as taking up the position as retained rider for Britain’s many-time Champion Point-To-Point Owner, Joe Turner, who trained just outside Bury St Edmunds, a job he kept for 10 years.

His graduation into training has been something of a happy accident. “I got asked by John Ferguson to ride his pointers, he had some high quality horses and we enjoyed great success, with me becoming his assistant,” says Owen.

“It was working for John that made me realise that being an amateur rider, which up until then had been the ‘be all and end all’, wasn’t a job, it was only really a bit of fun. It put life into perspective.

“I always wanted to be a pre-trainer and had spells working for [successful pre-trainers] Malcolm Bastard and Ed Peate. I love pre-training and breaking horses and have always been pretty good at it.

“It goes back to my dad, he was renowned for breaking in difficult horses, we’d get sent horses that no one else would do. I remember getting one that had been caught up in a manhole as a baby and had got the better of two previous yards.

“It was like a wild cow, but we worked it out and broke it in. I enjoyed that. My dad broke in some good ones, including Dublin Flyer [who suffered a pair of Cheltenham Festival handicap near-misses and ran twice in the Gold Cup].”

Getting started

His ambition to start a pre-training business came to fruition within six months of first meeting his wife, Jenny, who is a vet with the Baker McVeigh practice in Newmarket, and they got going at Harraton Court Stables in nearby Exning.

According to Owen, the key factor in the venture taking off was the involvement of the late Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum’s Shadwell Farm, or, more specifically, the Arabian side of Shadwell’s racing operation.

“I was friendly with the Hills boys [former jockeys, Richard and Michael Hills, who work for Shadwell] and they sent me a few Arabians,” Owen says. “It was their idea to let me keep going with a couple of them once they were ready to run and see how I got on.”

Owen has history with Arabians. His mother used to train and ride her own before, of late, becoming a successful owner-breeder. Himself a former pilot in Arabian Racing Organisation (ARO) races, her son has taken things to a whole new level and, in 2024, was crowned ARO’s Champion Trainer for the sixth time.

“We had a lot of fun and, without Shadwell, we wouldn’t be where we are today. Training the Arabians gave me a massive grounding and taught me to treat every horse as an individual. They are complicated characters, who can go off the boil very quickly,” Owen reports.

“Shadwell were such good clients that, along with the pre-training business and training pointers, plus the ability to borrow cheap money that came with Covid, we were able to fund the purchase of Green Ridge.

“Even then, I still didn’t want to train. But Covid meant that the numbers of pre-trainers fluctuated even more than usual, and, when His Highness Sheikh Hamdan died, the Shadwell Arabian operation shut down overnight.”

Friends in high places

The other key factor in the sudden explosion of James Owen Racing was Owen’s friendship with the top owner-breeder (and international show jumping rider), Tim Gredley.

“I met Tim at Horseheath point-to-point. Tim loves his pointing and wanted to give it a go,” Owen reveals. “So I trained some pointers for him and he did very well as a novice rider. He’s a fantastic horseman and we would have a great laugh when he came here to ride out.

“When I took out a licence, he said out of the blue that he and his father [Bill, known to Owen as ‘Mr Gredley’] might send me a couple of jumpers. That helped get me started. Even a year ago, I had no idea that they were going to send me some flat horses and to get a horse like Wimbledon Hawkeye from a first intake of just half a dozen two-year-olds, I know how big that is.

“I had always pre-trained their horses [including Ambiente Friendly] and I think Tim likes the fact that I am the underdog and someone new on the scene.”

Owen has had involvement in the Cheltenham Festival in the past, saddling three unplaced runners. John Ferguson came very close to success with a horse called New Year’s Eve, who finished second in the Champion Bumper in 2012 at a time when Owen was riding him every morning at home.

However, Owen never took part as a rider. The closest he came to partnering a winner at the home of National Hunt Racing was aboard a Bustino gelding called Hot Plunge, who finished runner-up in the two-miler at the Hunter Chase Evening there in 2004.

His three best Cheltenham chances, spearheaded by East India Dock in the Triumph Hurdle, are all Gredley-owned and happen to be running on the Friday, Mr Gredley’s birthday.

In good shape

“East India Dock was progressive on the flat and seems to come alive at his hurdles, he’s pretty quick from A to B and enjoys schooling,” Owen reports. “I couldn’t have him in better shape.

“As a half-brother to Burdett Road, he’s well-bred for jumping, he’s by more of a National Hunt sire in Golden Horn, compared to Muhaarar. I only got my hands on him again not long before he made his hurdling debut at Wincanton in October [he was trained on the flat by James Fanshawe], but I broke him in. It’s not just about the Triumph with him, hopefully we will be here again next year, thinking of him as a Champion Hurdle horse.

“The Gredleys are leaning towards running Burdett Road in the County Hurdle, rather than the Champion. He’s a lovely horse to have and is growing up all the time. He got beat in the Kingwell by Golden Ace, but that may turn out to have been a pretty good performance giving her eight pounds.

“This will be his last hurdling run for a while, then he will be prepared for the Melbourne Cup and run in some of the top staying races, such as the Ascot Gold Cup. His handicap mark of 111 is perfect for Melbourne.”

The Gredleys’ final Friday fancy is Allmankind, a horse who had returned from the wilderness to become a leading candidate for the St James’s Place Hunter Chase over three miles and two furlongs, having made his name over two miles with Dan Skelton.

“He had a problem with a check ligament, so was given lots of time off,” James says. “He was out in the field with Big Orange [the Gredleys’ Ascot Gold Cup winner] and it was Tim’s idea to have another go with him. He ran well in three hurdles for me, but needed to be dropped in the handicap, so Tim thought that we could go down the hunter chase route.”

“He runs in my wife’s name and, if it goes pear-shaped, I’d love to see him back pointing. Tim has had two great days with him already, watching him at Horseheath and Higham.

“He proved that he stayed when beating a Horse & Hound Cup winner at Horseheath and I was thrilled with him at Higham, my god he flew around there and jumped like a gazelle. Someone has since told me that he clocked the fastest speed rating there in the last 20 years. He’ll be bang there coming down the hill at Cheltenham, that’s for sure.”

Big guns

Owen is also set to saddle One Big Bang and Liam Swagger in two handicap hurdles, the Pertemps and the Boodles, plus Grozni in the Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir Handicap Chase.

“I really fancied One Big Bang the last time he ran at Cheltenham [third on New Year’s Day], but he probably just hit a flat spot after they’d gone slow before running on. We then ran him back too quickly at Ffos Las, before he won at Haydock and a competitive handicap like the Pertemps is going to suit him,” Owen says. “He’s for a local syndicate and we only paid £20,000 for him.

“Liam Swagger will hopefully have some spring ground to help him. He takes a bit of work and he’s had a break, so we gave him a nice spin at Southwell on the flat. He’ll love getting towed along in a big field.

“Grozni is the first National Hunt horse for some new owners and gave them a lovely day out, when he ran a cracking race to be sixth in last year’s Kim Muir. We’ve kept him away from fences this year [to protect his mark], so he should get in off a nice weight.

“It’s great, surreal, fantastic to have so many chances at the Festival,” Owen concludes. “But, after Cheltenham, our minds will quickly move on to the Derby… and then to the Melbourne Cup!”