Flat industry has a tough act to follow as Frankel casts shadow

It is a challenge that could not be more formidable, even if today’s season-opening Doncaster meeting passes an inspection and enables the 2013 Flat season to get off to the chilliest of starts.

The omens are more encouraging for today’s meeting rather than tomorrow’s card that features the William Hill Lincoln, Flat racing’s traditional curtain-raiser, which will be put back to Saturday week if the forecast snow materialises.

Today is the first of 26 scheduled Flat meetings on Town Moor and the shadow of Frankel is already illustrated by Doncaster’s decision to upgrade the conditions race at the St Leger meeting which Sir Henry Cecil’s wonder horse won in 2010 at the outset of his record-breaking career. It will now enjoy Listed status and be known as the Flying Scotsman Stakes. “We want to get the better horses on our bigger days and this is one of them,” said managing director Mark Spincer.

Like the rest of the Flat industry, he has a tough act to follow. Last year’s campaign reached a dramatic denouement when Camelot tried – and failed – to become the first horse since Nijinksy to win the historic Triple Crown.

Given that Nijinsky galloped into immortality in 1970, it is highly unlikely that the feat will be achieved in 2013 – despite Ladbrokes raising the value of its enduring St Leger sponsorship to £600,000.

The most likely Classic contender at this stage is Camelot’s stablemate Kingsbarns, who was an imperious winner of Doncaster’s Racing Post Trophy last autumn.

However, trainer Aidan O’Brien has already indicated that his two-year-old champion is unlikely to reappear until the Qipco 2000 Guineas, the first Classic of the new season, is staged at Newmarket in early May.

The manner of his Racing Post win, under the trainer’s son Joseph, suggests that this could be Ballydoyle’s standard-bearer this summer. But connections will be satisfied if the colt wins just one of the English classics.

It was an oddity that O’Brien could not win the trainers’ title last season despite winning four of the five Classics – only Encke’s win over Camelot in the St Leger denied him a historic clean-sweep.

That John Gosden eventually prevailed by £160,000 was testament to the horse-power that he built following the St Leger triumphs of Arctic Cosmos and Masked Marvel in 2010 and 2011, respectively.

However, despite having the services of the ice-cool William Buick at his disposal, Gosden is realistic about this season’s prospects – even though Lahaag and Eshtibaak provided him with a formidable hand in the Lincoln.

“We’re perfectly realistic about the fact that of the six individual Group One winners, four of them are retiring, so we know we have to build up again,” said Gosden. “But that’s the great thing about our business – young horses come in and it’s like a process of regeneration. Just like a young squad to a football manager and a youth team.”

Without horses like Eclipse hero Nathaniel, Gosden will rely on the likes of The Fugue, who was desperately unlucky in a string of big races, including the Breeders’ Cup, last season.

She is likely to reappear at York in May where Bedale-based jockey Graham Lee will expect to continue his phenomenal run of success since switching to the Flat a year ago following one fall too many over jumps.

The former Grand National-winning jockey went on to win more than 100 races, including a Stewards’ Cup, and has been tipped by some as a potential champion jockey. However Lee plays down such talk: “There are no plans, no goals. Like last year, I will work as hard as I can and ride as many winners as I can. Boring I know, but that’s the way I’ll be working.”

It’s a comment indicative of the new Flat season – it has much to live up to.