Chris Gordon

Formerly a prolific point-to-point jockey, with around 150 winners to his name, Chris Gordon initially trained point-to-pointers, privately, for Simon Tindall, alongside his wife, Jenny. However, after seven successful years – and, ironically, on the eve of the deepest recession in Britain since World War II – the pair borrowed £40,000 and began renting Morestead Farm, near Winchester, Hampshire, following the departure of the previous occupant, Brendan Powell.

Gordon began with just a handful of horses, but made an also immediate impact when just his second runner, Quarrymount, won a handicap hurdle at Fontwell on November 9, 2007. He saddled just four winners in his inaugural season, but steadily increased his seasonal tally and, in 2013, with Tindall as guarantor, purchased the house and stables at Morestead Farm.

Gordon holds a dual-purpose licence, but his emphasis is on National Hunt racing. Indeed, at the time of writing, he is enjoying his best season ever on the Flat, with three winners from 27 runners, at a strike rate of 11%, and £24,234 in total prize money. By contrast, under National Hunt Rules, his best season, numerically and financially, came in 2022/23, when he saddled 52 winners from 235 runners, at a strike rate of 22%, and collected £660,720 in prize money.

That season, Gordon enjoyed his biggest single payday, so far, when Aucunrisque made all to win the Betfair Hurdle at Newbury on February 11, 2023. The previous February, Aucunrisque had also won the Dovecote Novices’ Hurdle at Kempton to give Gordon his second success in the prestigious Grade 2 contest after Highway One O Two two years previously. More recently, Gordon also saddled the ill-fated Our Champ to a ready, 3¾-length victory in the Swinton Handicap Hurdle at Haydock on May 10, 2025; the seven-year-old subsequently developed lung cancer and was humanely euthanised the following August.