Flat season gets welcome sheikh-up

THE 2018 Flat season is already a vast improvement on the past couple of campaigns and it’s about to get better at Royal Ascot next week.

The reason can be summed up in one word — ‘competition’.

Imagine how dull the Premier League will become if Manchester City continue to win the title in a hack canter.

And racing is no diffferent. Journalists spent the latter part of 2017 counting how many Group 1s Aidan O’Brien had won as the master trainer made his unrelenting way to a record of top-level triumphs.

Great achievement. Yawnfest of a story.

It was at Royal Ascot last June that Godolphin, once the dominant force of European Flat racing, stirred from a coma to re-emerge as one of the summer code’s big beasts.

Although Coolmore topped the leading owner table via its placed horses, the fact the two rivals tied with six victories apiece during the five days was welcome news for those wishing to see a contest rather than a (month late) May Day Parade.

Now, of course, Sheikh Mohammed (above) will attend the Royal Heath on Tuesday as a Derbywinning owner for the first time, thanks to Masar’s success at Epsom. Ballydoyle, meanwhile, has not enjoyed its prepotency of 2017 — at this point 12 months ago it had captured five of the Classics run in Britain and Ireland, but the corresponding figure for this season is two. One of those wins came with Saxon Warrior in the 2,000 Guineas — but that horse now finds himself on a retrieval mission in the Irish Derby after a flat fourth behind Masar, whose connections have wisely opted to go for the Coral-Eclipse rather than a rematch on Coolmore’s home turf at the Curragh.

With Godolphin’s Charlie Appleby and Saeed bin Suroor in opposition — not to mention John Gosden’s impressive team — the O’Brien battalions should have a fight on their hands at Royal Ascot.

It’s no anti-Ballydoyle sentiment to see competition as good for the sport. Bring it on.