MICK DOYLE, the Irish-based fishing magnate who not only sends all of his horses to be trained at Middleham by Mark Johnston but also includes the word "love" in the name of all of his racehorses, goes for gold with Love Regardless in today's Sagitta 2000 Guineas.

Johnston certainly delivered the goods with Doyle's former back-to-back Royal Ascot scorer Fruits Of Love. As to whether Love Regardless can fly even higher than that we shall find out at just after 3.55 this afternoon.

There's precious little evidence in the form book. One runaway win as a two-year-old in a Newcastle six-furlong maiden is hardly the normal precursor to Classic success.

But as Doyle told me on a visit to the UK a couple of weeks ago: "Mark will do all in his power to get the horse right for the big day."

The betting public are also seemingly bullish about the northern-trained hope with a positive tidal wave of money flooding in for the son of Storm Bird, backed at all odds from 40-1 earlier in the year, to his current price of around 8-1 with the major layers.

The bookies are running scared of Johnston's bold bid to scoop the £300,000 showpiece. After all, the Scottish vet-turned-trainer has a sensational record in the race, having won with Mister Baileys in 1994, had the runner-up via Lend A Hand in 1998, and sandwiched between those two corkers, he placed Bijou D'Inde to finish third in 1996.

Even Johnston is somewhat taken aback by the short price of Love Regardless. "We've never made any secret of the fact that the colt has had knee problems and it's a big gamble going to the Guineas having only run once, " he said.

That level of inexperience has to be overcome if Love Regardless is to triumph, although Johnston has shrewdly sought to level the playing field by taking the handsome three-year-old to Ripon racecourse for a gallop against a couple of his stable companions on the last two Sundays.

The fillies have their turn tomorow, sadly with no contender from our region in the 18-runner line-up.

At the head of the market, Mick Channon is hoping his Queen's Logic can maintain her 100 per cent unbeaten record. Not far behind, Luca's Cumani's Gossamer is subject of considerable stable confidence.

For each-way "thieves", Marcus Tregoning's Misterah is an outsider with decent prospects, however I'm going to stick with the favourite Queen's Logic (3.45), said by her rider Steve Drowne "to be the best he's ever ridden".

* Racecourses will be presented with an alternative to the proposed, and controversial, deal on picture rights put to them by the Racecourse Association this week.

The British Horseracing Board, whose chairman Peter Savill is vehemently opposed to the RCA deal, will put forward its recommendations at a meeting in London next Thursday, which would appear to indicate that the deadline for courses to agree to the RCA contract is the end of next week.

The deal agreed with the bookmakers has been condemned by the BHB and the Racehorse Owners' Association as being a bad settlement for racing.