Having been in the public eye since the late '90s, rising from a teenage footballing prodigy to a global household name, it might come as a surprise that Michael Owen is only now featuring in a fly-on-the-wall documentary series about him and his family.

Meet The Owens follows a year in the life of the former England striker, his wife Louise, and their four children Gemma, James, Emily and Jessica, as they juggle a horse race business alongside a chaotic home life.

At work, Michael has built a horse racing business to compete at the biggest events in the world, while at home, he and Louise are preparing for life as empty nesters.

"When you're a footballer you've just not got that opportunity, and nobody does it while they're a footballer," Michael told Radio Times of the new documentary. "So you could sort of write off the first 15 years of my life from doing one of these. I think the more and more I built Manor House, the more and more people asked me about horses. 'Oh, are you into your horses?' And 'Do you own a horse?' And things like that.

"It's like, 'My God, I employ 50 people. We've got 135 horses. I've got one of the biggest yards. It's a really good story and not many people know about it. So I think that's where the idea started."

Plenty of ground is covered in the six-parter, from the running of Manor House to Gemma balancing her media career with an ambitious new challenge to train at the stables, setting her sights on racing at Glorious Goodwood.

For Gemma, filming the documentary "seemed natural", telling : "We're a really, really close family. I'm extremely family-orientated and Manor House Stables is a big part of it. So it seemed natural. As the series goes on, my involvement in Manor House develops as I'm training for the Magnolia Cup, so it felt right.

"It was really important that it was organic and authentic and we didn't want to sort of act. It was very important that it was all organic and authentic to us and hopefully that comes across."

Michael noted that as filming went on, he and his family grew closer with the crew, adding: "I think to start with it was Manor House and then it evolved. You get friendly with the crew and the sound guy becomes one of your big mates and the camera woman and all of a sudden you're a real close-knit group, and they come up to do a couple of days' filming, and you end up going for a meal after, and then you end up going to the pub together and it's just been really, really enjoyable doing it."

He said that through developing those friends, "a real natural show" is formed. Michael, along with his family, worked closely with Emmy-nominated Chris Wallwork (Born Racers) who directed the series.

The series is produced by Whisper, an award-winning production company behind who have been behind the coverage of some of the most iconic sports events including UEFA and Formula 1.

"We've put our heart and soul into it," he explained. "We've obviously opened our family doors and given lots of time and effort. So we're determined to not necessarily make it a great show, because that will be dictated by what everybody thinks, but certainly we didn't want to leave any stone unturned, so hopefully people enjoy it for what it is."

Meet the Owens is available to watch on Prime Video now.

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