Essayer OR - Gratuit

CHARLIE ON TRACK AND ON THE BALL

Racing Ahead

May 2026

Nick Townsend talks to rugby-playing saddle star Charlie Johnston

So, what's a leading young trainer to do on Grand National Saturday, a day when the stable has no Flat runners. Take the welcome chance to relax? Some TV binge-watching, luxuriating to the sounds of his favourite music? Catch up with friends? Not a chance. In Charlie Johnston's case, he was turning out for Wensleydale Rugby Club in the Yorkshire League. At No6. Blindside flanker. Right in the thick of the action.

I played quite a lot this winter,” the 35-year-old tells me. “It’s certainly my main release away from racing.”

Normally with the Flat season proper underway, he would have hung up his boots until the winter by now, but as he puts it: “The Flat offerings on Grand National day were pretty poor, we had no runners, so I played again yesterday. I was maybe regretting it at one point when I went over on my ankle and thought ‘Christ, I can do without breaking it’. Fortunately, he came through it unscathed. And with victory secured.

“A very tough, hard-fought 26-23 win over Beverley in horrendous conditions,” he reports. “Sideways rain and hail, gale force winds. There weren't many spectators still braving it by the end. But we got the job done, thankfully.”

The drive he exhibits on the rugby field exemplifies his approach to training. The following day he's back in the thick of it, to the job he'd craved since, well, not quite birth, but not far off it. With the turf Flat season underway in earnest, it finds him on a packed train up to Musselburgh to saddle no fewer than eight horses in five competitive handicaps. The first Suddenly I See wins comfortably, earning connections over £10,000 and his placed horses earning decent dividends, too.

“The Sunday series is a good initiative, good prizemoney for horses in that bracket,” he explains “The meeting has been on my radar for a little while.”