Racing: Fallon in a jam as Darley closes in

Golden ages are supposed to live in the middle distance, 20-odd years ago when petrol was cheap and your waistline modest. It is easy to miss them when they are in the here and now, which is why every punter should pause for a moment as the latest Flat season draws to a close, to appreciate just where we are. Last year there was Giant's Causeway and Sinndar, Kalanisi and Montjeu, this season Galileo, Sakhee and Fantastic Light. There have been no back-to-back campaigns like it since the early 1970s, when Nijinsky won the Triple Crown and the Brigadier beat Mill Reef in the Guineas.

This year, perhaps, has been the better of the two, not least because of the human contest which has threaded its way through the season from the first meeting at Doncaster in March and seems sure to return to Town Moor for the Flat's last rites on Saturday. When Kevin Darley won the jockeys' title last year, there were many who admired his talent, graft and good humour, but still reckoned him an accidental champion, the accident in question being the one which ended Kieren Fallon's season in June. Fallon set out to reclaim his title in impressive fashion, but after eight weary months he has still not shaken off Darley. Yesterday, the defending champion rode a double at Redcar, while Fallon ran into traffic problems and failed to arrive at Nottingham. Darley is now just eight winners shy of Fallon's total of 163 this season. If he can claw them back at the same rate for another five days, he will still be the champion jockey this time next year.

Both riders will be at Catterick this afternoon to turn a standard assortment of claimers, maidens and low-grade handicaps into an eight-act drama. Darley has at least one outstanding chance on Rosselli, who has at least 12lb – and in most cases considerably more – in hand of his 11 rivals in the claimer on the official ratings. Maceo, in the last, and Double Spice, in the first division of the all-age maiden, also have claims, while Fallon's best ride may be Marlo in the nursery.

"I'm just enjoying it all and there is no pressure on me," Darley said after his double yesterday. "I have some good rides tomorrow and at Musselburgh on Wednesday, and they look all right on Thursday too, so we will have to see."

Both men will hope to pick up a good ride in the November Handicap, with Fallon a potential partner for Ed Dunlop's Mesmeric, who was installed as the 8-1 favourite for the race by the Tote yesterday. April Stock, Dancing Bay and Saltrio are 10-1 chances, while Batswing, last year's winner, is one of several names on 12-1.

Were Darley to haul himself past Fallon by Saturday evening it would be a remarkable achievement, yet still not quite enough to make him the year's outstanding individual. That honour seemed sure to belong to Aidan O'Brien from the moment he arrived at Epsom in June to saddle Galileo in the Derby, and the shy young man from Co Tipperary will be the first foreign trainer to win the title since his namesake and predecessor at Ballydoyle, Vincent, a quarter of a century ago.

Assuming that his campaign in Britain is over for the year, O'Brien will claim the championship with 20 winners from 99 runners, and a record prize-money total of £3,389,000, an increase of 10 per cent on the previous record set by Sir Michael Stoute last year. Galileo carried the standard, but there were Group One wins too for his fellow three-year-olds Black Minnaloushe, Mozart and Milan, while the juveniles, in Britain at least, carried all before them.

O'Brien's attempt to become the first trainer to win every European Group One two-year-old race open to colts came unstuck at Saint-Cloud on Saturday, but the astonishing potential in his yard offers a bridge between the latest exhilarating season and the one to come. Johannesburg, the Breeders' Cup Juvenile winner, will presumably be at Churchill Downs in May for the Kentucky Derby on the same day that Hawk Wing, Rock Of Gibraltar or another O'Brien three-year-old lines up for the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket. And if the 2002 campaign picks up where the latest one left off, you will not find the punters in a mood to complain.

* Best Mate, one of last year's leading novice chasers, faces a formidable gang of three from the Paul Nicholls stable in today's Haldon Gold Cup at Exeter. Best Mate, from Henrietta Knight's in-form yard, receives 12lb from Nicholls's Fadalko, who concluded last season with a narrow Sandown defeat by another inmate of Knight's stable, Edredon Bleu.