There was a lot hanging on the results at the York Ebor meeting last week – second only to Royal Ascot for its prestige. Indeed, proud and patriotic Yorkshire folk counter the notion that ‘York is the Ascot of the North` with the contradiction that ‘Ascot is the York of the South`. Events at the latest Ebor meeting, attended by Royalty, will probably prove at least as momentous as what went off in July at Ascot`s Royal meeting. For a start this meeting is that much closer to the climax of the season, to the reputation making and strengthening championship races, worldwide, are rushing towards us.

York racecourse lies on flat land within walking distance of the centre of one of the United Kingdom`s most historic cities. It is under no threat of development; the racecourse is sacrosanct and not just for Yorkshireman who traditionally call their domain “God`s Own County”.

Runners came from America, France and Japan but through the four-days of top class racing they were trumped by Britain`s current leading trainer Andrew Balding. Aidan O`Brien is just ahead of him in the trainer`s table, each with totals of over £7million in prizes, way clear of any other trainer. In the year of his father Ian`s death son Andrew is having an Annus mirabilis.

Ian Balding only won one trainer`s title – 1971 the year his Mill Reef swept all (bar Brigadier Gerrard) before him. Ian was a pioneer of picking up big prizes all over Europe – which meant he depleted his chances of becoming champion in the UK but he left a legacy of high achievement at Kingsclere, Hampshire, which Andrew is now exceeding and excelling. Fifty-five years after his father, son Andrew (53) could dislodge Aidan O`Brien, seven-time champion, from the top spot.

Andrew has won plenty of races abroad but back in his father`s day big prizes round Europe could be scalped more easily than today and with his international patronage – notably Mill Reef`s American owner Paul Mellon whose influence is still felt at Kingsclere with his black colours, yellow cross carried by the Kingsclere Racing Club – Ian flew the flag continent-wide.

An 1831-1 three-timer for Andrew Balding on the Wednesday, first day of the four day-meeting, shattered the kind of domination that O`Brien and Coolmore and their great rivals Godolphin have come to expect as their right – not that Aidan O`Brien is ever self-deluding. Nor could Coolmore be denied their own celebrations. O`Brien struck first with Haffner (Justify-Earth Strike by Zoffany) in the Acomb Stakes (Gr3) for two-year-olds, but the Great Voltigeur Stakes (Gr2), traditional St Leger Trial, went to Derby runner-up Maltese Cross (Sea The Stars-Nabotea by Camelot). This performance, overturning two O`Brien Derby winners, Christmas Day (Epsom) and Pierre Bonnard (Curragh), set up the William Haggas-trained colt for a shot at the Prix de l`Arc de Triomphe in October. Maltese Cross had already crossed to Paris last month to win the Grand Prix de Paris.

The race of the meeting, the ten-furlong Juddmonte International (Gr1), billed as a clash between the top-rated (by some calculations) horse in the world, Godolphin`s many time Group One winning five-year-old Ombudsman and Coolmore`s French Derby hero Constitution River, looked like a return to old times - Godolphin versus Coolmore, no holds barred. But neither got near the winner, Item (Frankel-Capta Temptress by Galileo).

Bred and owned by the Juddmonte race-sponsors – much of the £850,000 prize they needn`t withdraw from their bank account - Item`s only defeat came in the Derby in soft conditions that didn`t suit a number of runners at the Epsom meeting – saying which there had been no rain in the country between that day in early June and the start of the Ebor meeting. The watered course remained green and when sudden rain hit York the ground that had been rock hard suddenly lived up to its name – we were, after all, racing on York`s former floodplain, the Knavesmire.

This time, on what is a conventional flat track – where Item is three from three - as opposed to the ups and downs of Epsom, the son of Frankel who himself won this race in 2012, put Derby failure – his only defeat in six outings - behind him.

Juddmonte, Andrew Balding and jockey Colin Keane have had five Group One winners in just over a month. Both Item and Kalpana dug deep to win in photos. They couldn`t both do that in the Prix de l`Arc so markets will be alert to the possibility of which one goes and which one ducks the middle-distance championship of Europe. Kalpana might head for the Fillies & Mares on Champions Day at Ascot.

It shows York`s confidence in its attraction that so much such high-class, high-premium racing could be concentrated on the first day of the four and on day two Kalpana (Study of Man-Zero Gravity by Dansili) added the Yorkshire Oaks (Gr1) to her King George & Queen Elizabeth Stakes (Gr1) heroics at Ascot. Kalpana took her career earnings to £2.2 million and surely encouraged Juddmonte that in this four-year-old filly they have a viable contender for the Arc – to follow in the footsteps of two recent British distaff Arc winners, both owner-bred: Enable, Juddmonte of course, and Kirsten Rausing of Lanwades`, Bluestocking.

George Boughey, 33, has come of age, as has his jockey Billy Loughnane just twenty-years-old, in an astonishingly short space of time. Loughnane already has, barring accidents, his name on the jockeys` title while Boughey, shrugging off the retirement of his flagship Guineas winner Bow Echo, goes from strength to strength. Combining with their Royal Ascot winner Libertango (No Nay Never-Ein Gedi by Oasis Dream) they plundered the Lowther stakes (Gr2) for juvenile fillies to add to Albany Stakes victory at Royal Ascot. If she can be stretched from this six furlongs to a mile then next season`s One Thousand Guineas is hers. Libertango`s form was endorsed when Senorita Bonita (Starspangledbanner-Belicious by Ruler of the World) who beat her in Gr3 at Newmarket, then stormed home for Simon and Ed Crisford in Deauville`s Prix Morny (Gr1).

The impression American sprinter Bacio (Maclean`s Music-Katie`s Kiss by Kantharos) left after winning a hot sprint handicap at the Royal meeting was immense but no more than we had come to expect from American handler Wesley Ward who has a long string of similar successes to his name at big meetings in Britain. Somehow Bacio, a three-year-old colt, was beaten once in the States but he has started favourite in all his races in his native land and the UK, and simply ran away from his field in the five-furlong Nunthorpe Stakes (Gr1).

Bacio has more travelling to do – back to the States for the Breeders` Cup and then Australia for their top class sprints.



Three more notable performances, not least visually, came on the final day of the meeting – the Saturday. The Pattern races are for the punters: the Ebor Handicap, the most valuable handicap in Europe, is for the punters to flex their financial muscle and there were many fancied among the 22 runners for the £500,000 prize money for the historic mile and three-quarter handicap, first run in 1853. Yes, many fancied but, in a three-way photo, one winner, 10-1 shot Daiquiri Bay (New Bay-Strawberry Martini by Mount Nelson). Irish champion jumps trainer Willie Mullins saddled undisputed favourite Love Me Tender in anticipation of Mullins capturing this oh-so-difficult handicap for the third time in four years. Alan King like Mullins is a ‘dual purpose` trainer perhaps best known, like Mullins, more for their exploits over jumps. But King holds his own on the flat and Daiquiri Bay was unbeaten this season. His sights may now be raised above handicaps.

The Strensall Stakes (Gr3) was won by nearly eight lengths by Archivist (Dubawi-Provenance by Galileo) a four-year-old gelding trained by former Qatar handler Hamad Al Jehani who is making waves from just thirty horses in his Newmarket stable. Al Jehani announced his arrival in Britain with a Goodwood double and now will seek higher goals for Archivist.

Dubawi has sired over two hundred Group One winners and after Archivist`s heroics, along came another son, Notable Speech, the 2024 Two Thousand Guineas winner.

Notable Speech (Dubawi-Swift Rose by Invincible Spirit) added the City of York Stakes (Gr1) to his illustrious CV. Notable Speech has travelled the world for his last fifteen races – all at Group One level and accumulating over £3million in prize money. Afterwards trainer Charlie Appleby was more than usually emotional over the five-year-old who has won six Group Ones and as they say “has danced every dance”. It is standout horses like Notable Speech (not that there are many like him) who capture racegoers imaginations and keep the show on the road.

Others seem intent on making that road a rocky one. Politics continues to blight British racing. York is an independent track but the biggest portion of the countries fifty-nine courses are controlled under the conglomerate of the Arena Racing Company (ARC) or the Jockey Club.

It has been said “the battle is on for the heart and soul of the game.” The British Racing Authority (BHA) was set up as racing overlord to keep warring parties – Racecourses (RCA), Owners (ROA) and Trainers (NTF), and bookmakers on board and in their places. The Government, the politicians? Ah, a trickier task still. Their proposed anti-gambling legislation could be toxic for horseracing.

The place of ARC is bottom of the pile – bread and butter racing but controlling the biggest grouping, 16, of tracks. Independent Ascot and then the Jockey Club and now even lowly, in terms of quality of racing, Plumpton and Taunton jumps tracks, have pulled out of the RCA citing irreconcilable divisions.

The current Government has a blinkered outlook on betting which means - in effect - anti-racing and with racing`s various bodies fighting like rats in a sack, that`s hardly the way to court the politician`s favours. The knives are out and backstabbing is forever the chosen way to settle disagreements among racing`s disparate authorities.

There will be no return to executions on the Knavesmire but if racing doesn`t hang together it will surely hang separately - as Benjamin Franklin said to the diverse States at the signing of American Independence in 1776 - about the time Madras began racing in India. Forty-five years previous to that York staged its first meeting. Hangings ended in Britain in 1964 (the last one on the Knavesmire was 1801) but racing in this country, and it must be said, elsewhere, is hanging by a thread.