History beckons for O'Brien in race he dominates

During the 1997 athletics season, every time Danish 800-metre runner Wilson Kipketer, dominant in the event throughout the late 1990s, took to the track the crowd hummed in expectation of a long-standing world record being broken.

Kipketer eventually tied Sebastian Coe's 1981 time in Stockholm in July 1997. Five weeks later in Zurich he took the record outright and 11 days after that set a mark of 1:41.11 in Cologne, which stood as the world record for 13 years.

You surely know the direction this is heading, but it is not just the story arc that is echoed by Aidan O'Brien's bid to break Bobby Frankel's record of 25 Group 1 winners in a year. It is also the sense of anticipation.

In a way, O'Brien reaching his Stockholm on a day as big as Champions Day felt just slightly anticlimactic – greatness is not measured in ties – yet it still gave racing an increasingly rare foray into mainstream sports bulletins. The world will know once he gets to 26.

Part of the reason O'Brien has got this far is because, besides his County Tipperary stable's dominance in Ireland, he has created homes from home all over the world – and Doncaster is very much one of them.

He has won the St Leger five times, including with Capri last month, and his seven wins in Saturday's showpiece, the Racing Post Trophy, put him behind only Sir Henry Cecil and four ahead of anyone else.

Four of the 12 runners in this year's Racing Post Trophy come from Ballydoyle. The race has been pencilled in for The Pentagon since he won the Tyros Stakes when last seen in July, but since then he has been joined – and on some ante-post lists passed – by Saxon Warrior as the yard's main hope for next year's Investec Derby, which this race informs as strongly as any other.

The O'Brien quartet is completed by Seahenge, winner of the Champagne Stakes and third in the Dewhurst, and Coat Of Arms, an outsider but beaten just a short head in the Futurity Stakes. To say those two are on the flanks rather than in the vanguard tells us plenty about the yard's strength.

This is to be no guard of honour, though. Jim Bolger, who has won the Dewhurst five times but never this race, sends National Stakes winner Verbal Dexterity, and Roaring Lion is on the third leg of his hop, skip and jump having gone straight from novices to win the Royal Lodge last time.

Any big-race talk at Doncaster these days also has to touch on Andrea Atzeni, who rides the fast-improving Chilean for trainer Martyn Meade as he goes for a scarcely believable fifth straight win in this race, even more remarkably for a fifth different trainer.

As ever, though, Ballydoyle holds the best cards before the flop. Friday evening's prices suggest it is a little bigger than 1-2 that Doncaster will be O'Brien's Zurich. With the record sealed, he could head to Paris, San Diego, Melbourne and Hong Kong in search of his personal Cologne.

Group races at Newbury

Newbury is technically the main supporting card, but try telling that to jumps fans.

The two Group races in Berkshire tend to have the ring of the last-chance saloon, with the Worthington's 'Indigo Leisure' Stakes – the St Simon to give it its much more familiar label – a final opportunity for Frontiersman to secure the Group-race victory his talent demands.

He briefly lost the plot after shaping like the best horse in the Coronation Cup and Princess of Wales's Stakes, but got back on track to a point with a Listed win last time.

The Bathwick Tyres Stakes – or Horris Hill to most – similarly has deeply talented colts like Mythical Magic, Dream Today and Nebo all out to rectify poor or otherwise disappointing results on recent starts.

Leopardstown, meanwhile, waves farewell to the Flat for 2017 with a Group 3 and Listed contest, in which title leader Colin Keane partners a gelding called Celebration. With title rival Pat Smullen banned for the day, it could be in more ways than one.

Jumping back in earnest

Back to Britain, and why does a card highlighted by a couple of £50,000 handicaps feel bigger than one at Newbury which features two Group 3s?

It might be because jumps fans are, forgivably, unable to contain themselves about the first meeting of the autumn at Cheltenham.

It could also be a matter of perception, an optical illusion. The potential of the coming jumps season stretches before us on a card of competitive handicaps and high-quality novices, on which 12 months ago the winners included Sceau Royal, Wholestone and Fox Norton.

The best horse on the card might be one from the summer. We still don't know how good Alcala is: he didn't give Finian's Oscar the chance to tell us as he slipped on the final bend at Chepstow. Hopefully Two Taffs and Midnight Shot give us a better answer in a deep novice at 4.20.

Allied to that, there are two good handicaps, a strong novice hurdle, an indicative-looking bumper and the first Pertemps qualifier of the year.

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