Redknapp eyes King George glory in ‘Champions League’ of racing
RACING MAN: Harry Redknapp is not a celebrity racehorse owner, he is a racehorse owner who happens to be a celebrity, a lifelong fan who has done the hard yards in ownership for the past 40 years, swallowed the disappointments and bounced back for more. Picture: Alan Crowhurst/Getty
He has been a professional footballer, an FA Cup-winning manager and the King of the Jungle over the storied course of the past 60 years, but as Harry Redknapp talked about The Jukebox Man, his King George VI Chase contender, at Ben Pauling’s stable last week, he was the East End kid whose nan was a bookie’s runner and would be astonished to see where life and luck have taken her grandson.
“She wouldn’t believe it,” Redknapp says, suddenly back in Poplar in the 1950s. “It’s a far cry from the East End of London, (when she was) getting slung in the back of a police van every other day for collecting the bets.
