Born in London on March 2, 1947, Henry James ‘Harry’ Redknapp is best known for his career in professional football, which spanned 52 years, as player and manager. More recently, though, Redknapp has found fame as a racehorse owner, although as he told the BBC, pragmatically, ” You’re not always successful. I’ve got a lot of horses.” Indeed, his first horse, Slick Cherry, won just three of his 25 starts for David Elsworth, a selling stakes race at Windsor in June 1990, a claiming hurdle at Wincanton in January 1991 and a low-grade handicap, back on the Flat, at Chepstow in June 1991.
Moviesta, trained by Edward Lynam, eventually won seven of of his 39 starts between July 2012 and October 2017, notably including the Group 2 King George Stakes at Goodwood in 2013 and the Group 3 Renaissance Stakes at the Curragh two years later. Nevertheless, Redknapp has achieved his highest-profile victories so far under the National Hunt Code. On March 14, 2024, he won the TrustATrader Plate at the Cheltenham Festival with the aptly-named Shakem Shakem Up’arry, trained by Ben Pauling and ridden by Ben Jones. On Boxing Day 2025, he won the King George VI Chase at Kempton, by the narrowest possible margin, with The Jukebox Man, another trained by Pauling and ridden by Jones.
The Jukebox Man went on to contest the 2026 Cheltenham Gold Cup, for which he was sent off at 7/2 third-favourite, but could only finish a distant eighth of nine finishers, having reportedly made a respiratory noise. Redknapp was similarly out of luck with stable companion Taurus Bay, a £155,000 purchase described by Pauling as “very smart”, but noneless down the field in Turners Novices’ Hurdle on the second day of the Festival. Redknapp is also one of the owners involved with the twice-raced Kaiser Ball, a £360,000 recruit from Ireland, who will be trained by Dan Skelton.