Howard Johnson

Graham Wylie has sent six horses to Paul Nicholls including the highly-promising Quwetwo.

The owner's string had in the past all been based with Howard Johnson but he has now expanded his interests at Ditcheat.

The champion trainer, writing in his exclusive column at www.betfair.com/paulnicholls, said: "Graham Wylie has just sent me six lovely horses, in addition to the half share he has in Pacha Du Polder, a winner at Enghien in March, with Andy Stewart.

"The six horses from Graham are all rated 130 and over. The most notable is Quwetwo, and the others are Ascendant, Doeslessthanme, Double Expresso, Hold Fast and The Knoxs.

"I have other new owners in the yard, too. Robin Geffen, who joint-owned St Leger winner Arctic Cosmos, has kindly sent me Cristal Bonus, a very smart French horse in 2009/10, and now owns Kauto Stone. The latter is a half brother to a certain Kauto Star, and won the same Grade 1 race at Auteuil last year that Long Run did before him."
 
Very interesting. If Howard Johnson is banned, it'd be interesting to see where the rest end up. They obviously wouldn't all go to Ditcheat.
 
RP

HOWARD JOHNSON has been banned from racing for four years following a BHA inquiry.

The charges Johnson faced centred on the running of Striking Article eight times after the gelding had undergone a denerving operation called a palmar neurectomy, which causes horses to lose feeling in the back of the foot.

Striking Article was put down in February of last year after pulling up lame at Musselburgh, at which time it was discovered the denerving operation had taken place.

Horses who have undergone a denerving operation are barred from competiting on welfare and jockeysafety grounds, something Johnson denied being aware of. Johnson was also accused of adminstering steroids to three other horses.

Johnson faced a maximum ban of 10 years and had been told by his principal owner, Graham Wylie, that his 60 horses would be moved or sold if the trainer received a ban of six months or longer.

The County Durham-based trainer was informed of the disciplinary panel's findings last Tuesday, but sentence was not passed down until noon Friday.
 
His defence was laughable though... "I didn't realise" was never going to stand up. For someone of his standing in the NH world that's shocking professional negligence.

I wonder what he would have got without the neurectomy charge?
 
Proper message sent. As Aragorn indicates, to pretend you don't know what's banned is playing the village idiot, in which case you've no business having horses in your care.

And I'm sure that Andy Stuart (a co-owner with GW in some horses and a strong sponsor of NH racing) would've indicated his distinct reluctance to be associated by default.
 
BlazingWalker said:
A lot of ex Prescott horse's found their way to HoJo's via Mr Wylie ;)

PS I should add,the money paid for them was probably more than they were really worth.
Click to expand...

Cheers BlazingWalker ...

Is there no end to 'odd' bits & pieces?

I'll be diplomatic and shut up now ... yuck.
 
Anyway, good news about HW.

Wonder what happened about 'that robbery' in his place ... never did hear anymore ... no suspects, then?
 
There was also the mystery fire, wasn't there? And one horse which disappeared off the radar...

Hmm, what an unfortunate yard!
 
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