Owen Staying Ahead of the Curve

What a dasher he was–a blade to make even the world's most seasoned defenders fear that all the cunning they had learned, all their snagging tricks of knees and elbows, would be cut apart by his pure pace. But Michael Owen was never just the soccer equivalent of those sharp, early juveniles so beloved of his stable nowadays, blazing along the rail at its big local meeting at Chester in May. Yes, as every English fan has lamented, the second half of Owen's career was wretchedly punctuated by injury. Towards the end, he had to depend on his own footballing acuity to redress that erosion of his cutting edge. But if he started out as a Royal Ascot colt, he retired as a true Classic Thoroughbred among footballers, the only Englishman to score in four major tournaments and the only one to win the Ballon d'Or since 1979.

Above all, however, he was not just quick to mature on the pitch. Owen was also ahead of the curve when it came to planning for a life after football. True, the racecourse would not always be the most sensible resort for a wealthy young man. But while Owen admittedly owed his original curiosity to betting, he has since become unmistakably immersed in the life and soul of the Turf.

Only 24 when laying the foundations of a racing stable on a Cheshire farm, he was able to retire in 2013 unfazed by a challenge that finds many other footballers perilously unprepared. He has, indeed, secured the best of both worlds: remaining engaged with the soccer community, on the one hand, not only as a pundit on BT Sport but also through a management company for young talent; and, on the other, consolidating an ambitious partnership at Manor House Stables with Andrew Black, co-founder of Betfair, and their trainer Tom Dascombe.

“In terms of playing football, I was finished at 33–and maybe there's two-thirds of your life ahead of you,” he tells TDN. “What then? People think: 'Oh, if I was on that kind of money I'd play golf every day and be perfectly happy.' But nobody would really want to do that. You've got to be active, to keep the mind stimulated.”

He had, moreover, had ample opportunity to observe older players who had failed to see the abyss looming. “I've seen how people can throw it all away, and it can be very sad,” he says. “You don't need me to name names, it's all over the papers all the time. From the beginning they've seen their mates buying nice cars, nice houses, and they've done the same. And then you see that self-destruct button, you see what boredom or bad advice can do, a couple of divorces maybe. I have to be careful here, I don't want anyone to think I'm playing a violin or anything. But people have that sloppy view of footballers, that they're all making an absolute fortune. They forget that a lot of players might only be on those kind of wages from maybe 22 to 30, and I know plenty who have suddenly got to 40 and realised they can't go on any more without working.”

Already having a blueprint for the future, moreover, Owen was able to stand back and recognise the kind of cue to which other professional athletes, in panicked denial, often remain deaf for too long. “I had a decision to make: either go lower or get out,” he recalls. “Yes, in many ways I'd been like a precocious 2-year-old. But after the first six or eight years, whatever it was, it gradually became a matter of clinging on. Eventually I wasn't playing too much, in my final season at Manchester United, and then I wasn't playing that much when I went to Stoke, either. And the way I went, when facing that crossroads, that's always been my character. Don't get me wrong: I've seen plenty of people I really admire who, for the love of the game, just want to keep playing and don't mind at what level. But that wasn't for me. I'd been the playground bully for years, and everyone knows that those never like being bullied themselves. And that was the way I felt, chasing around Anfield and Old Trafford with Stoke. So I said to myself: 'You need to get out before your head explodes.'”

Mind you, there were those who misunderstood the nature of Owen's commitment to the Turf. Even his manager at Manchester United, the revered Sir Alex Ferguson, had ended up embarrassingly at odds with its elite professionals after his breakthrough into racing at the highest level with Rock Of Gibraltar (Ire) (Danehill). That notorious affair seemed consistent with the notion that football's flirtations with racing will only ever be frivolous, naive or spendthrift.

“I took quite a bit of stick,” Owen admits. “When I was 26 or 27, and starting to lose a bit of speed–I'd had a couple of bad injuries, wasn't the flying machine I'd once been–people were saying: 'Look at him, he's got his eyes on other things now.' If I didn't score a hat-trick, it was because I was too interested in racing. You can't win, of course: if people see you planning for the future, they say you're taking your eye off the ball; and if they see that you're not, they say you're stupid.”

It very soon became apparent, however, that Owen was sooner in the school of Mick Channon, another former England striker who has since achieved commensurate standing in his second career as a multiple Group 1-winning trainer. For the 2010 season, he head-hunted Dascombe–then making a big impression in Lambourn, after learning the ropes with Martin Pipe, Ralph Beckett and Mike De Kock–to take over Manor House Stables. The following year Dascombe saddled winners on consecutive days at Royal Ascot, one of whom proceeded to win the 2014 G1 Irish St Leger by 6 1/2 lengths. That was the cherished Brown Panther (GB) (Shirocco {Ger}), who also won the G2 Dubai Gold Cup last year but suffered a terminal, heart-wrenching breakdown back at The Curragh.

Owen bred Brown Panther himself, from the mare who had really set him on the road: Treble Heights (Ire) (Unfuwain), trained by John Gosden to win a listed race and finish second in a Group 2 at Deauville. But while numbed by the tragedy, Owen had developed sufficient insight to appreciate–rather than curse –his luck.

“He was held dear by all my family,” he says. “When I open my front door, I see his brother 50 yards away. Everyone loved him, from the lad who looked after him, to the traveling guys, to the trainer. He took us to every corner of the planet, he was a superstar. But aside from that natural sadness, when it happened, it wasn't a case of suddenly thinking: 'I hate this game.' He left us memories that will last a lifetime. In fact, I don't think anything can surpass what he did for us, not least in putting the yard on the map. He took us to a different stratosphere. Maybe I'll get another one as good, one day. But I don't think I can ever become as attached to another horse, or have such a story.”

“I was extremely lucky, to have bred him, and certainly wouldn't take any credit,” he added. “I just had a lovely racemare, who did me proud on the track, and because she was a black-type performer herself I invested pretty heavily in the nicer stallions. Then, just as I was beginning to think she wasn't going to be any good as a broodmare, and lowered my sights to a cheaper cover, out pops Brown Panther.”

So it was that Owen was vindicated in his hopes even as he was cautioned as to the vagaries of breeding. As a result, he has concentrated on developing the business in less speculative ways: upgrading the training facilities; promoting syndicates; trying to guarantee a fulfilling social return for investors, win lose or draw. “If a horse in the yard wins, I get such a buzz even if it's nothing to do with me,” he enthuses. “We party together, we watch the gallops together, we all feel that team spirit. So while I've been investing in improving the facility, so that it's now as good as I've seen in the industry, maybe to a degree I've neglected my own horses. It was only 12 years ago that I first stuck up that little shed. And at that time I owned 15 of the 20 horses on the site. Now we're up to well over a hundred. We've grown, and we've grown through turbulent times. I've learned a lot along the way. I've only got half a dozen mares, and I've never liked jumping into things without a proper understanding. But I think I've got a good grasp now. I've increasingly developed a keen interest in the veterinary side, the training side, in the whole business of what we want Manor House to stand for. And I feel the next step is to up my quality, in my mares and in my bloodstock in general.”

Read tomorrow's TDN for Part 2 of this interview.