Racing: Dettori doubles as Tote's fresh face

For those with an eye for the inevitable, Doncaster was a rewarding place to be yesterday, as Frankie Dettori strode confidently towards centre stage on the first day of the Flat season and picked up the script pretty much where he had left off four months ago. His first ride on turf in Britain this year was a winner - and one of the easiest he will sit on this side of Christmas. So was his second, in the richest race on the card, while away from the track, the Italian was revealed as the cheery new face of the Tote.

It is not so long since the thought of a jockey, for whom punting is firmly forbidden, signing up to promote a betting organisation would have raised the collective blood pressure at Portman Square to dangerous levels. These are more realistic times, however, and the man whose face and personality have become almost synonymous with the sport will soon grace a thousand posters attempting to persuade punters not to blow their cash at the bookies', but to blow it with the Tote instead.

"The Tote decided to use my face, I don't know why," Dettori said, false modesty being one of the few things he does not do well. "The good thing about the Tote is that all the profit goes back into racing, so the whole purpose is to get people to bet on the Tote, so we can create huge Jackpots and a good winning bet for a lucky punter."

That, of course, is something Dettori knows all about, and the bookmakers had cause to rue his return by mid-afternoon. Miracle Kid, his ride in the 10-furlong handicap, cantered home at 9-2, while in the Listed Doncaster Mile, Canyon Creek required only a little more coaxing to stride clear of Yeast, the hot favourite.

First Island, the winner of the Mile 12 months ago, went on to take the Sussex Stakes at Goodwood, but while Canyon Creek, with just two races behind him, is undoubtedly a horse of promise, it is hard to imagine him making similar progress. "We were a little surprised at how easily he did it today," Anthony Stroud, Sheikh Mohammed's racing manager, said afterwards. "We'll just have to see what there is for him." A minor Group Three event in France apparently beckons.

Dettori's rapid double was returned at odds of almost 24-1, so his latest employers must have been grateful for their built-in profit margin. Just as relieved were Doncaster's administrators, since with attention focused squarely on Dettori, little time remained for the navel-gazing which has become a tedious opening-day tradition. The first turf meeting of the year will never be more than a minor diversion between Cheltenham and Aintree, just as the early stages of the National Hunt campaign go unnoticed amid the high-summer Flat festivals.

None the less, John Sanderson, Doncaster's clerk of the course, was sufficiently sensitive to the criticism which always comes his way at the time of the year to float two possible solutions. The first, to move the Lincoln meeting beyond the Aintree festival, is hardly original and suffers from enormous practical drawbacks.

The second, more intriguing, idea involved extending the Flat turf season through the winter, with a nominal - and easily forgettable - starting date for the new season immediately after the November Handicap meeting, also at Doncaster. The Levy might also benefit, since punters appear to show a slight preference for Flat racing on grass. At present, though, this is little more than a vague suggestion in BHB discussion documents, and the best hope for an end to the ritual moaning may be that everyone will simply get bored with it.