Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last ten years, you will be well-acquainted with the names of Chris and Martin Dixon.
The brothers, who grew up on a farm 12 miles from Beverley, have established an on-screen presence on Racing TV, although the black and tangerine silks of their Horse Watchers ownership group are also increasingly familiar – and so they should be given the success the duo have enjoyed.
It’s been some journey from the first day’s racing the pair experienced as youngsters at Wetherby, which left them besotted with the sport and shaped their childhood, not to mention summer holidays.
“We never went abroad because, if anything went wrong on the farm, Dad [Brian] would want to be able to drive back,” recalls Chris. “So we’d always look at the map and see if a racecourse was close to where we were going, and then check if that track was racing.”
Losing a wallet and its contents – “a couple of quid for my bets” – at Folkestone one afternoon was not enough to scar Martin, who, like his elder brother, was quickly gripped by the attraction of picking winners despite, initially, “having no idea what I was doing”.
“We’d get the Yorkshire Evening Post and every morning, from the age of 12, I’d mark down my selections for every race and then check the results on Ceefax when I got back from school,” he adds.
Chris’s fondness for the formbook led him to the idea of punting professionally at one point, although that was not something their late father favoured. He first became involved in ownership during his time studying sports science at university in Derby through a couple of John Wainwright-trained horses.
It all started from wanting to back our judgement further
A few years later, the boys – who have forged a reputation as diligent, articulate and passionate TV personalities – played a part in securing lightly raced juvenile Miako out of Marco Botti’s yard.
“At the time, I quite liked betting on Southwell,” says Chris, a talented footballer in his youth who dreamed of a full-time playing career until he was released by Hull City after a spell in their academy.
“So we bought this son of Speightstown and the idea was to try to have a decent bet on him there, but, a week or whatever after we bought him, Southwell flooded and the Fibresand was washed away!
“We had to run him at Wolverhampton and Kempton, but Southwell got back up and running and you can find the video of his win – he was quite well backed and won very easily.”
Putting their money where their mouths were had, through their punting, been an MO of the Dixons, but ownership and Miako, trained by their close ally Mick Appleby, cranked things up a notch.
“It all started from wanting to back our judgement further,” explains Martin, who “scraped” through his linguistics degree before working for the Press Association and Timeform.
“We’d have an opinion on a horse and, if it was available to buy, we’d go for it. A bit like when you’re having a bet, you’re believing in that horse and we took the same view into ownership.
“Having success as an owner gives you a bigger kick than having a good bet, but usually we’ve had a couple of bets on those success stories as well!
The biggest thing is how many excuses there can be – and genuine excuses
“It’s easy to look from the outside and say people have done a good or bad job with their horses but it’s different when you’re putting your own money down, doing all the hard work that’s involved in buying and placing a horse; we wouldn’t have been able to sustain it for as long as we have and built syndicates if we hadn’t had some success.”
Chris, whose television work was preceded by a broadcast stint at Coral, describes their steps into ownership as educational – ones that helped with his punting and punditry.
“The biggest thing is how many excuses there can be – and genuine excuses,” he says. “You realise just because a horse ran badly, it’s not the end of the world because it can quickly bounce back.
“When you’re looking from the outside, you’re looking for a reason and assume owners and trainers know, but you realise they don’t always know either. It changed your outlook because you had a broader understanding of what was going on.”
Pearl Nation was another to advertise the Dixons’ growing prowess as talent spotters, while Chris mentions notable money-spinners Big Country, Raasel and Rhoscolyn as highlights and, for Martin, Intervention and Baldomero are memorable purchases for The Horse Watchers, which originally included just the siblings – both married fathers of two – and Matt Taylor and Richard O’Brien.
A number of factors resulted in the operation becoming more of a commercialised syndicate.
“The idea was to buy a horse, hope you could improve it and, at some point in its first three runs, have a big enough bet on it to pay for your share – and it kind of worked,” continues Chris. “But then bookies got wise to it and Covid happened, prices were going up, so it wasn’t as sensible. We were also getting asked if we’d sell shares in horses. We thought, ‘Sod it, why not’, and that’s when it became bigger.
“People think they’ve a fair chance of a winner with us, which – without sounding arrogant – I suppose is backed up by our results.”
Achieving those results does not come from a secret sauce recipe according to the 41-year-old Chris, who also wears the hat of agent to Flat riders Cieren Fallon, Jason Watson, Joanna Mason, Ali Rawlinson and Fred Larsson, and “would love to help make someone champion jockey one day; that appeals to my competitive edge”.
You have to forgive things at the sales when you’re on a budget
With his transfer guru hat back on, he outlines: “We’re looking for untapped potential at the sales and a lot of that is based on what they’ve done on the track and what they might be able to go on to do.
“We’ve had Group-class horses and will hopefully have more, but that’s a progression thing – you dream of getting there and most don’t – so the starting point is buying a horse to win races and improve.
“You have to forgive things at the sales when you’re on a budget: there’s a reason people with bigger budgets aren’t buying that horse. That goes back to forgiving bad runs, there doesn’t always have to be a reason for them, but sometimes it can be as simple as thinking a horse just hasn’t had the right conditions to show what he’s capable of.”
Turning base metal cast-offs into gold has been a calling card for the outfit, which has around 20 in training and also plays, albeit to a lesser degree, in the yearling market.
Ten per cent shares in horses is the model they operate on, but, intriguingly, smaller dividends could be offered to see what appetite and demand there is for them.
Growing to the level of other well-known syndicates is not necessarily high on the list of ambitions as Martin says: “It’s more of a business now than it was five years ago when it was just us and the other two fellas and I don’t think we had any grand plans of it evolving to this extent. It’s been step by step, but I’ve enjoyed how it’s grown.
“It’s more enjoyable having the syndicates than when it was just us. If you have a disappointing result, there’s more people affected, but if you have a good result there’s more people to enjoy it with and we take a lot of satisfaction we’ve been able to help provide that.”
The worry for me is a declining interest
Talking horses and the nuts and bolts of which one will run faster than another is the currency the Dixons mainly deal in, but the sport’s politics is not a topic that escapes attention – and nor cannot it when you’re involved to the extent they are.
“The worry for me is a declining interest,” says Martin, who, at 38, is hardly some old fuddy-duddy.
“They’ve got to engage younger people in the sport in the way I got engaged with it and, whether people like it or not, a lot of people’s interest comes from betting on it, so racing has to acknowledge its direct relationship with bookmakers, and not be afraid of it, but fight that corner.
“Nearly everyone I know – friends not in the industry who go for a day out – still enjoy having a bet and the buzz they get from horseracing comes from having a bet, watching the race, and possibly having another buzz if they win. The betting industry goes hand in hand with horseracing and people enjoy betting on it – we shouldn’t run away from that.”
Despite criticising prize-money over jumps – “you have bumper horses who have cost a few-hundred grand running for horrendous sums” – Martin thinks initiatives such as the Racing League should be applauded, pointing out opportunities, particularly on the all-weather, do exist, and can be lucrative.
“That Tony Carroll horse last winter [Mumayaz] is the prime example,” he says, referencing the 60-something-rated gelding whose two victories and nine placed efforts helped him pocket a £75,000 bonus from Arena Racing Company.
His big brother has a take on the fixture list as well.
“From a point of view of placing our horses, it’s probably great there’s so much racing because you can find your spots to win, but if you had a little less of it and the prizes you won were worth more, that would work as well,” he says.
“I think the danger for the sport is ownership is expensive and is getting more expensive, so there will come a point when people start to think they’re having the piss taken out of them with how much it costs in relation to their returns.
“Finding a way to produce competitive prize-money is important and, for me, there probably is too much racing. I think the programme should be trimmed to increase competitiveness, but then add to the programme when the demand is there.
“I know you can’t reduce the fixtures owned by the racecourses, but why not – apart from cards that have that historic, set programmes, like Royal Ascot – reduce every card to six races, but let it be seven or eight if races can divide?”
Do not expect divisions in the Dixon camp anytime soon given they are extremely close and speak every day, and not just once.
“Perhaps weirdly, I think we had only one fight as kids; we were always together and rarely fell out,” remembers Chris. “The biggest enjoyment of doing this is that I’ve done it with Martin. Nothing was handed to us, there were no legs up, and I think we’ve done well and I’m proud of what we’ve achieved.”
Anyone watching on TV or looking at the results of their horses would surely agree.
‘One of the best’
As the Dixons’ profile has increased, so too has that of Mick Appleby, who has gone from a jump jockey of little note to Breeders’ Cup-winning trainer.
“We wouldn’t take credit for it, you couldn’t, but you take pride in how well he’s done,” Chris Dixon says of Appleby’s rise.
“We were in when others weren’t and people in the press room might remember me saying how good a trainer he was – one of the best in the country – but not everyone knew it.
“Steadily, everyone has realised how good he is, and he’s had a top-level horse in Big Evs, but he’s always been a great trainer. I’m proud we supported him when we did.
“At the time, Mick was unproven, but had potential and it’s nice some of the horses we found with him, whom he improved for us, attracted other owners and then it snowballed.”
Appleby, who has curated the careers of Big Country and Raasel among others for the pair, has hit the 100-winner mark four times in the last five years, and Dixon adds: “The quality of horse in his yard now is unrecognisable from when we first went.
“The first horse we bought, Miako, cost £6,500 and, at the time, he was the second-most expensive horse Mick had trained in terms of what had been paid for a horse to go to his yard – now he’s got an owner spending 300,000gns at Book 1 for him! It’s miles away from where he was.”
