Saint Mick splashes out on new stud farm

RACEHORSE trainer Mick Channon is moving a step closer to his roots.

With the purchase of Home Farm Stud, West Tytherley, the former Southampton and Eng-land footballer will not be far from the village of Orcheston, near Shrewton where he was born and spent his childhood.

Home Farm Stud will complement Channon's main training yard at West Ilsley and will be used primarily for breeding thoroughbreds.

The West Tytherley site has always been used as a stud farm and is purpose built with its 36 loose boxes, and Olympic size indoor arena set in approximately 118 acres of land in west Hampshire.

Channon, a former Wiltshire county youth player, made more than 700 professional league appearances - the majority of them with Southamp-ton - and chalked up more than 230 goals.

He also played for his country 46 times and his 21 goals in the national side leave him in England's top 20 all-time top scorers.

Racing was always a passion of the 54-year-old and on his retirement from the game in 1986, Channon worked as assistant trainer to John Baker and John Cunningham-Brown.

Then in 1990 he set up on his own in Lambourn, Berkshire with just a handful of horses.

By the autumn of 1999, he had built up a string of 100-plus horses and was beginning to make a name for himself as a trainer of note.

He then bought the impressive stables at West Ilsley in Berkshire formerly owned by the Queen.

Channon is now established as one of the most renowned trainers on the flat in this country, training more than 130 horses.