Racing: Simeon to lead a new offensive by Johnston

It was not even a month ago and the dream was still vivid. At the start of Epsom's Derby meeting, Mark Johnston's rather lofty aspiration of one day securing the trainers' championship from the outpost of Fort Middleham was alive.

The Kingsley House man was leading the trainers' table, his 46 winners having produced the bedrock of £550,000 in prizemoney. If either Fight Your Corner or Bandari had won the Blue Riband the established hegemony of Ballydoyle and Godolphin would have been under some sort of threat. A new, if temporary order, was on the point of establishment.

In just under 160 seconds, however, that dream was broken. So too was the fifth home Fight Your Corner, who suffered an injury to his left-hind leg which is threatening his career. Bandari's fracture was to his reputation, as he plodded home in eighth. You could tell the normally loquacious Johnston was numbed by his response. "There's not a lot I can say," he remarked.

The thought of a championship had even begun to settle in the minds of Team Johnston. That made the Epsom disappointment even more crushing. "Obviously, we were thinking that [the title] ourselves," the trainer said yesterday. "Somebody said to us last year that we were only two good horses away from being champion trainer. That's what it takes to bridge that gap. This year we thought we might have those two horses, but it did not work out that way."

The reaction could have been a shellshocked weaving retreat from the trenches, but perhaps Johnston's greatest strength is belief in his own ability. He soon had the troops dusted down and back at the front at Royal Ascot. Braveheart, as he is known in the trade, showed the southerners that he is not done for yet.

Royal Rebel won the banner event of the whole meeting, the Gold Cup, while there were victories also for Systematic in the King George V Stakes and Zindabad in the Hardwicke Stakes.

The thought that Johnston's expertise is confined to older horses was also detonated when Helm Bank beat the toast-hot Irish favourite Tomahawk in the Chesham Stakes, with his stablemate, the filly Celtic Sapphire, just behind in third.

"She's probably going to go for a Listed race over seven furlongs at Deauville on the 11th," Johnston reported. "At the moment we are thinking of the Champagne Lanson Vintage Stakes at Glorious Goodwood for Helm Bank."

Soon it will be time also for beaten Derby horses to reappear and ride out for reputation salvage. First up, it appears, will be Simeon, whose winning streak of five was brought to an end at Chantilly, where he finished third to Sulamani and Act One in the Prix du Jockey Club (French Derby).

"He's in the Princess Of Wales's Stakes at Newmarket next week, but that's only a Group Two and the real aim is to win a Group One with the horse," Johnston added. "We may be looking abroad and he's got a couple of entries in Germany. He's shown he can travel and he's shown he can handle all sorts of ground, which is an advantage when you go further afield and you don't know what it's going to be like until you get there.

"Fight Your Corner is no longer here. He's just had surgery on a hind leg and he's at the Darley Stud in Newmarket [the property of his owner, Sheikh Mohammed]. Bandari is still here and he's rapidly coming back to himself. It won't be too long before we start thinking about running him again.

"He's a Group winner already [in the Lingfield Derby Trial] and, like Simeon, it will be a Group One or maybe Two next, but probably not right in at the deep end."

Wherever he goes, Mark Johnston will travel with self-confidence and the conviction that one day he will topple the twin monoliths at the head of racing. "We can't afford to think they're unbeatable even though it's quite nice to be third," he said, "and we'd better not write Michael Stoute off just yet. It's attainable, but it takes two superstar horses on top of a good team.

"It's not entirely a financial thing, but it is a huge factor and we wouldn't pretend that we have the same ammunition. Maybe one day we'll do it. What is definite is that we'll keep trying."