RICHARD HANNON concedes that after finishing champion trainer in his first season at the helm 2015 was always likely to be something of an ante-climax, but plenty will look abt the final table and be green with envy that his horses amassed more than £3.5m in prize money (£4m if you include his foreign successes), putting him in third place behind John Gosden and Richard Fahey.
Reflecting on the season, Richard said:"We came out of the blocks flying and won the Lockinge Stakes at Newbury with last year's 2000 Guineas winner Night of Thunder and followed up with Pether's Moon repelling a strong French challenge to land the Coronation Cup at Epsom.
"Royal Ascot is arguably our favourite meeting, and we managed two winners there this year, Illuminate in the Albany and Osaila in the Sandringham, and, though the second half of the season was not as lucrative, Illuminate did win the Duchess of Cambridge at Newmarket's July Festival and then ran a blinder in the Cheveley Park, while Toormore, having finished second in the Lockinge, won a brace of Group 2's, the Lennox at Glorious Goodwood and the Topkapi Trophy in Turkey."
We might have sent out seven fewer winners than our championship season, finishing with 191 this year, but we actually had six more individual winners (143) and with 80 coming from the juvenile division there is plenty to look forward to for next year.
…one more big gun to fire this season, Toormore in Hong Kong
ONE of Richard Hannon's ambitions is to nail that elusive first winner outside Europe for the family, and he hopes that Toormore might do just that in the G1 Hong Kong Mile at Sha Tin on December 13.
Hannon said:"Toormore has done us proud these last three seasons, winning just short of £900,000 in prize money, not bad for a 36 grand yearling.
"Godolphin, who now own him, are looking at a globetrotting campaign next year, and he has not been over-raced this summer, so there should still be some juice in the lemon for Hong Kong.
"He ran really well when third in the Prix de la Foret at Longchamp, but a mile definitely suits him better than seven furlongs, and, while Able Friend will be tougher to beat on his home patch than he was in the Queen Anne at Royal Ascot, we'll go there fresh and well next month."