Racing: Momentum behind Johnston's ascent: Classic ambitions return to Middleham. Richard Edmondson reports

RACING'S down escalator is a crowded chamber these days. But Mark Johnston is a lonely man in a different shaft, travelling in the opposite direction.

While fellow trainers have been driven from the sport or forced to prune their strings as winners have dwindled, the Middleham man has increased both his totals and workforce in recent years.

When the Flat turf season opens at Doncaster tomorrow, there will be few who can adopt the rosy outlook of Johnston. He has the reputation of the coming man, a 60-box yard full to the rafters, and one horse which may provide Middleham with its first Classic winner since Dante in the 1945 Derby.

Yet this season may be the toughest so far for 33-year-old Johnston. At the helm of perhaps the most sophisticated headquarters north of the Trent, the Scot has quickly charged past the thick stodge of British trainers who operate on privilege. Now he must measure himself against those who already employ his modern techniques. 'It could be that I've reached my plateau,' he says. 'I hope not.'

A sizeable proportion of trainers trade on after-sales service; the post-race pageant of clinking tumblers and tales of what is to come. Johnston is not among them.

'Mark is a very serious man, whose ambition is to hit the big-time as a trainer,' Dean McKeown, the stable jockey at Kingsley House, says. 'Some trainers are more on the fun side, but Mark's totally dedicated to the job.

'Mark is hard on himself and whenever he has a runner either he or Deidre (Johnston's wife) will go to see it run. At the same time the staff have got to work hard and he has got a willing bunch that are ready to graft. '

Johnston has never been a man to veer from a goal. He selected training as his career while in his teens, but still completed a six-year veterinary course.

Johnston BVMS, MRCVS did the Farnon stuff when working at a mixed country practice in Northern Ireland, but further posts in Cleveland and Essex concentrated more on horses.

By 1987 he had his first licence and trained horses at North Somercotes on the Lincolnshire coast. This was a time when the Scot's string actually substantiated a phrase in racing's tired litany and proved themselves 'bombproof'.

'We did our work on the beach and the area was an RAF range,' Johnston says. 'We used their warning markers as furlong poles and there were bombs dropping while the horses were working, but they soon got used to that.'

Then came the move to Middleham and the 14th century Kingsley House, once the home of the author of The Water Babies, Charles Kingsley. 'We literally got a map out and looked for the obvious place to set up,' Johnston says. 'And this was it.'

The gleaming facilities aside, Johnston's major weapon is the feed he gives his string. 'The first principle is that they can't run if there isn't the proper fuel in the tank,' he says. 'I use a high- energy feed which contains animal fats and sugar. I say it's like feeding them on Mars bars and chips.'

This diet works and has led to Johnston being bestowed with a title he detests - the one of 'top northern trainer'. 'I get very annoyed about that,' he says. Johnston would prefer to be considered in the wider realm of Britain as a whole, and, as he was 17th in last year's championship, this is not an unrealistic request.

The horse that did most to post his credentials in 1992 was Marina Park, who won the Group Three Princess Margaret Stakes at Ascot and is now a lively candidate for the 1,000 Guineas. 'She has a chance in the Guineas and there is certainly no geographical problem about training a Classic winner from Middleham,' Johnston says. 'From the moment I started here people have said that stuff is crazy dreams, but there's no way it's pie-in-the-sky.

'Marina Park herself couldn't be better and I've no doubts the ability is still there. I'm more confident by the day.'

Marina Park, though, may not be the most significant horse in Mark Johnston's string. That beast is probably Pearl Kite, the first Arab-owned animal to be put in the trainer's care. Johnston knows that if he can fashion Saeed Manana's filly into a creditable performer, more Arab horses are likely to follow.

'Pearl Kite's big and backward and scopey, but she's got as much speed as the little, zippy ones we think are nearly ready to run, so we're excited about her,' he says. 'And if she does well who knows what sort of doors will open.'

(Photograph omitted)