Richard Hannon Richard, Richard Junior and members of the Team describe their working relationships and their approach to training at Everleigh and Herridge

WITH his impressive dual yards at Everleigh and Herridge housing a joint strike force of almost 200 horses, Richard Hannon is and has been for many years a permanent fixture in racing's 'super league' of trainers.

His name shot to prominence in what proved one of the most unlikely Classic results of the post-war era when 50-1 chance Mon Fils captured the 2,000 Guineas in 1973. Hannon was on at 200-1, with ?50 each-way, and the colt thus provided the foundations for the success story that has taken him to the top of his profession.

He might have an Irish name but Hannon is Wiltshire through and through, having taken over a mixed team of a dozen horses when his father handed the licence over to him in 1970. His family - wife Jo, daughters Claire, Fanny, Julie, Lizzie and twin sons Henry and Richard Jnr - have been raised in and around Everleigh, the village nestling on the edge of Salisbury Plain.

Richard Jnr has assisted his father for the last few seasons and is on the cusp of taking over when his father decides to retire, although Hannon admits he will always be a cog in the wheel which keeps the Hannon operation rolling on with a regular total of 100 winners-plus per season.

Pondering what will be an almost unnoticeable change of name on the licence - R Hannon to R Hannon Jnr - Richard says: "When he takes over here my advice to him will be to try to upgrade the horses. I'm not keen to retire, but then again when I do nothing will change, because i'll continue to do the job i'm doing now. The name on the licence will alter from Richard Hannon to Richard Hannon Jnr."

Classic success came early to Hannon and it continues to come, while his penchant for handling a high class team of two-year-olds is there for all to see. On the other hand, he continues to harvest the bread-and-butter races and produces a successful all-weather team each year. Basically he is an 'everyman's' trainer. If you have the horse, he has the ability to quickly assess it and win with it in its right grade.

Undoubtedly the victory of the Mick Kinane-ridden Tirol in the 1990 2,000 Guineas, a colt in who he owned a quarter share, helped him purchase the Herridge estate where his impressive two-year-old yard now stands. Hannon was soon to capture that colt's Classic again with Don't Forget Me and he has a superb record in the valuable Sales races in Great Britain and Ireland, especially the Weatherbys Super Sprint at Newbury which he recently landed with a 100-1 shot in Lady Livius.

In 1992 - his championship winning season - he handled the champion sprinter Lyric Fantasy whose victories included the Nunthorpe Stakes at York, while the following year he posted a record haul of 182 winners. The year 2009 has seen him reach the century milestone for the 18th time in the last 19 - a hugely impressive statistic in the portfolio of a man who was born to train winners.