As the 2003 Flat racing season approaches the final furlong, Northern Echo Editor, Peter Barron, looks back on Mark Johnston's tenth successive century of winners and discovers he still isn't satisfied.

WHEN a two-year-old colt called Hinari Video won at Carlisle in 1987, a success story began which has reached a remarkable milestone this year.

Hinari Video was Mark Johnston's first winner.

What he has gone on to achieve surely makes him not only the region's most consistently successful sportsman, but one of the north's most enterprising businessmen as well.

There were sniggers when the Scottish vet announced that he would train Classic winners from his then unfashionable Middleham base, but he has built a multi-million pound business which has transformed the fortunes of the Wensleydale market town and redrawn the racing map.

The promised Classic came with Mister Baileys' thrilling success in the 1994 2,000 Guineas, a hatful of other Group One victories followed, and this year saw the tenth successive century of winners flow from Kingsley House - a feat no other trainer has matched.

Knavesmire Omen will go down in the record books as the horse who gave the master of Middleham his tenth consecutive ton when he romped home in the Marriott Hotels Goodwood Stakes on July 30.

Looking back on his record-breaking season this week, Johnston - known for his stable motto "Always Trying" - was characteristically hard on himself.

"It's a mark of consistency which no-one else has achieved," he said.

"But what's disappointing is that we somehow haven't been able to get a Group One winner this year - that's what sticks in the throat."

It sticks in the throat because Johnston, with 133 winners and counting in 2003, is adamant that he has never had a string of horses of such high quality.

The stable stars of previous years race easily to mind: from his first group winner, Marina Park in 1992; through evergreen handicappers like Quick Ransom and Branston Abby; to the people's champion Double Trigger; and horses of the highest quality such as Mister Baileys, Bijou D'Inde, Yavana's Pace and Fruits Of Love.

But the string of 2003 - particularly the two-year-olds - have excited Johnston like no other generation and that is why the lack of a Group One winner remains a mystery with just a few weeks to go.

The Duke of Roxburghe's flying filly Attraction is the biggest source of frustration. Unbeaten in five outings, including the Group 2 Cherry Hinton Stakes in July, Johnston has never been as confident about the credentials of one of his horses to win a race of the highest class.

"I simply cannot believe there is a better two-year-old filly anywhere in Europe or the world," he said.

But between April and July, when she was streets ahead of any contemporary, there simply wasn't a Group One race available for her to win.

Now her racing career hangs in the balance after she was found to have cracked her pedal bone during training in September.

"She's going home to the Roxburghe Stud for six weeks and then she'll come back here to be trained for the One Thousand Guineas but it remains to be seen whether she can stand up to training. It has to be 50-50 whether she makes it," said the trainer.

While Attraction has been out on her own among the fillies, the Johnston colts provide the strength in depth with Lucky Story, Duke Of Venice, Pearl Of Love, Russian Valour, Nero's Return and Leicester Square all possible Classic contenders for next season.

Champagne Stakes winner Lucky Story was a sad late withdrawal from the two-year-old race of the season, the Darley Dewhurst Stakes at Newmarket, today after failing to sparkle in a gallop on Tuesday.

However, Sheikh Mohammed's Duke Of Venice, a spectacular winner of a Sandown maiden on his second appearance, is a leading fancy to end the Johnston stable's Group One drought, and make the season complete.

The day before Lucky Story was pulled out, Johnston said: "People ask all the time which is our best two-year-old, but once you know how good they are there's no point working them against each other - we'll find out which is the best on the racecourse.

"It's only a guess but I have a hunch Duke Of Venice might have a chance of beating Lucky Story over seven furlongs in the Dewhurst, but probably not over a mile."

Duke Of Venice, who is likely to go to Godolphin after the race, has been supplemented at a cost of £24,000 to take on the likes of Three Valleys and Snow Ridge. Mick Doyle's Pearl Of Love, meanwhile, heads for the Gran Criterium in Milan tomorrow.

"It's not over yet," said Johnston. "We could have two Group One winners by next week."

It is that unflinching desire for more and more success which has led the world's top owners to raise their horizons and send horses to the north instead of relying on southern trainers.

With Johnston recently back from the sales merry-go-round, another batch of yearlings - the potential stars of the future - are due to join the 140 existing inmates of Kingsley House.

Former top jockey Bruce Raymond, now assistant racing manager for the Gainsborough Stud, was a visitor to Kingsley House this week to run his eye over the Maktoum horses entrusted to the care of Johnston.

"Mark has changed the racing landscape," said Raymond. "Middleham is on the map because he put it there.

"What we like is that he tells it how it is.

"He's open, honest and direct and his staff are so incredibly friendly and efficient," pointing to Head of Racing Operations, Debbie Albion, as she helped Johnston sort out the next day's entries.

Already the fastest man to train 1,000 winners on the Flat, he can look back on 2003 as the year he broke Henry Cecil's record by training 100 or more winners in ten successive seasons. And by this afternoon, the missing piece of the jigsaw might be in place if Duke Of Venice can win the Dewhurst.

So what ambitions remain in the seasons ahead?

"Of course I'd love to win the Derby but it isn't what it used to be.

"Given the choice of winning the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe or the Derby, I'd always take the Arc. Given the choice of the King George or the Derby, I'd take the King George.

"I want to train a multiple Group One winner - one that keeps on doing it, like Falbrav. And I look at Dermot Weld popping up all over the world, winning races, and I want to learn how to do that. There's plenty more to do."

Mark Johnston hasn't given up trying yet - not by a long chalk.