Charlie Longsdon. Charlie Longsdon has more than a little in common with another of our trainers, Ben Pauling. Like Ben he was a former assistant trainer to Nicky Henderson, just vacating that role when Ben was moving into position, to set up his own business in Oxfordshire in 2006. They are also both tall (very in Charlie’s case), affable and brothers-in-law! They can both train horses too, Charlie quickly getting into his stride early in the piece, once stretching into the 70’s for winners.
He soon attracted the attention of Her Majesty, the Queen and has sent out a number of decent winners in the Royal colours. The overall tally, while still respectable, has come down a little more recently as some of the stable stalwarts have got longer in the tooth. A measure though of his talent was the fact that old Loose Chips was able to be readied for what was to be a final win before retirement this year at the grand age of 15. Charlie and his owners have responded to the change in circumstances by recruiting stores and former Irish point-to-pointers, but of course bringing them through and preparing them in the correct manner for the eventual career as steeplechasers is always a time-consuming process. Once racing resumes, expect to see an upturn in the fortunes of this highly-capable handler.