There seemed little doubt about Michael Dickinson’s career path. Born 1950, into a horse racing family, his father Tony Dickinson was a highly successful National Hunt jockey, before he became a trainer, while his mother Monica Dickinson was an expert horsewoman in her own right, before holding her own trainer’s licence.
A long time before he became a trainer, Dickinson junior tested and then proved his mettle on the track and was an incredibly talented jump jockey, being crowned the Champion Amateur Rider on three occasions during the 1970s.
He also recorded an impressive 117 winners under rules, while he established a deep, practical understanding of a horse’s mechanics.
Transition To Training
After hanging up his whip, Dickinson then undertook an ‘apprenticeship’ with his father as an assistant trainer at Poplar House Academy at Harewood in West Yorkshire.
It was a family unit that provided a powerhouse effect whereby his father’s traditional wisdom combined with his own data-driven perfectionism formed what became an almost unstoppable operation.
Officially taking over the licence from his father at the end of the 1979/1980 season, Dickinson junior moved the yard up a level.
It became one of the most revolutionary in the sport of that time, with sports science-led training regimes working to an effect that essentially shocked the racing world.
An Era Of Dominance
Dickinson’s ideas paid dividends. In the 1981/82 season his yard shattered all records, sending out an unprecedented 120 winners.
It was an incredible feat of genius that earned him a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most National Hunt wins in a single British season, which was a record that went unbroken for years.
Meanwhile on March 17 1983, Dickinson achieved what remains at the time of writing, the single biggest training feat in horse racing history.
In the Cheltenham Gold Cup, he trained all of the first five across the line, who became known as the “Famous Five” including the winner, Bregawn, saddled by Graham Bradley, Captain John, Wayward Lad, Silver Buck and Ashley House, with this being widely regarded as being impossible to replicate.
It is understood by many in the sport that Dickinson trained two incredible winners including Silver Buck (winner of two King George VI races as well as the 1982 Gold Cup)and Badsworth Boy, who became legendary, winning three Queen Mother Champion Chases (1983-185).
His move to flat racing in 1984 shocked many of those associated with the sport, however, he was headhunted by multi-millionaire tycoon, Robert Sangster. In successfully doing so, he became the private trainer at the historic Manton estate.
Although he had considerable financial backing, this was a partnership which was cut short after only two seasons because of clashes in approach.
In 1989, Dickinson then moved to the USA, where he then set up a state-of-the-art training facility in Maryland from which he solidified an international reputation and legacy, training Da Boss to twice win the Breeder’s Cup Mile (1996 & 1998). The latter was considered an incredible accomplishment, with the horse having been out of action for nearly two full years.
Entrepreneurialism In ‘Retirement’
After stepping away from the training circuit having established himself as one of the most widely regarded, forward-thinking trainers of his generation, he then pursued a business venture born from horse safety; something he had been a passionate advocate of in the late nineties.
As such, Tapeta Footing was born, which went on to become a globally recognised business in the sport.
The groundwork for this was established when he successfully patented ‘Tapeta’ a mixture of high-tech, same, wax, fiber and rubber that fundamentally revolutionised synthetic racing surfaces.
This is now used today all around the world, including in the UK at both Newcastle and Wolverhampton.
Despite a brief return to training, including in 2015 when he reopened and essentially rebranded his Maryland operation as the Tapeta Farm, which featured climate-controlled barns, salt water spas and many custom gallops, proving his knowledge of equine training science remained unmatched, he retired for the final time in 2022, handing over training operations to his long-time assistant.
He is recognised the world over as one of the sport’s great and interesting pioneers.