Racing: Royal Ascot - The galloping globetrotter

History beckons as America's down-to-dirt speed merchant meets the aristocracy

As Luis Figo and his chums know, it rarely pays to underestimate a challenge from the US of A. And on Saturday at Royal Ascot another great American dream may prove to have more than novelty value when Caller One, the world's highest-earning sprinter, takes on Europe in the Golden Jubilee Stakes.

With every passing day racing is more of a global village as horses commute from continent to continent in search of prestige and prize money. But although European raids on North America take place as a matter of course, the reverse is very much a trickle against the tide. The reasons are not difficult to fathom: the purses in this neck of the woods are not sufficient to outweigh the risk of defeat playing away under alien conditions.

Caller One, a five-year-old bay gelding, will be the first high-profile American horse to compete at Royal Ascot since the US Triple Crown winner Omaha went down by a short head to our Oaks heroine Quashed in the 1936 Gold Cup, an encounter that still ranks as one of the epic battles in the meeting's history. But Omaha was prepared for his British campaign by Cecil Boyd-Rochfort in Newmarket; the last American-trained horse to run at Royal Ascot was Kentucky Derby winner Reigh Count, runner-up to Invershin in the 1929 Gold Cup as a four-year-old.

Should Caller One prevail on Saturday, he will be the first US-trained winner on the Flat on these shores since Reigh Count won the Coronation Cup. The only other successful American strikes in Europe have been Fourstars Allstars' Irish 2000 Guineas in 1991 and hurdler Lonesome Glory's victory at Cheltenham the following year.

Caller One's build-up to his date with destiny has been shorter on razzmatazz and Stars 'n' Stripes hollerin' than might have been expected. The horse is already a history-maker; in March he became the first horse successfully to defend a title at the Dubai World Cup fixture, showing his trademark blinding speed and iron resolve to take his second Golden Shaheen under the desert floodlights. But the prospect of immortality is not what initially prompted this week's venture. Caller One, his handler Jim Chapman and Guatemalan groom Cowboy are on the way home after racing in Dubai and Singapore, and Royal Ascot, via lodgings in Newmarket, happens to fit in along the road.

Chapman is a horseman of the low-key, pragmatic school. "To be honest," he said, "this is all a business decision. The horse is a gelding, so racing is the only game in town for him, and we want to keep him moving on the way to the big prizes at the Breeders' Cup and another crack at Dubai next year. This race is much better for him than having the handicappers putting the grandstand on him back home."

Caller One and Cowboy are no dainty dishes to set before a Queen. The horse, whose visitors in Newmarket have included one L Piggott, is a hard-faced professional with the hindquarters of a t-rex and a tendency to snap and bite similarly at the front end. Until he smiles Cowboy, given to wearing a black ten-gallon hat and a belt with a tooled silver buckle, could be easily imagined cleaning his nails with a switchblade.

The road to Ascot has not been the silkiest. After glory in Dubai there was igno-miny in Singapore, where Caller One fin- ished last on his first venture on the grass surface he will face on Saturday. That flop was put down to his nursing an abscess in a forefoot, and earlier this week a similar injury flared up when he knocked a shoe off at exercise. On Friday, though, he was back on track, his workmate blown away like a leaf behind a Ferrari.

That pure speed is Caller One's most potent weapon. His modus operandi is to stalk the pace before blitzing away. And once away he is hard enough to pass, as the opposition have discovered 10 times previously. "Some horses have to work at their speed," said Chapman, "but his is natural. He does it so easily within himself, which makes him so lethal. He is quite aware of what he is, too. That big ego and aggression has to be part of the make-up. He can be sassy but generally he's a nice horse to be around."

Ohio-born Chapman breeds, buys and sells horses from his farm in Florida and is a hands-on operator, up to his elbows in soap as he tended to his star's ablutions last week. He is first-generation horsey, his family having been in the trucking business, but his children have inherited his love and aptitude. Son Jimmy, who handles Caller One at home, trains in California; one daughter Kim, also trains, and another, Kristi, is a jockey. Chapman part-owns Caller One (with business partners Theresa and Rolf Obrecht); he bought the bay son of Phone Trick for $100,000 (£68,000) as a yearling and sent him to market as an unraced juvenile, but the horse failed to reach his reserve of $200,000 and came home. Prize money of more than £2 million has been serendipitous compensation.

A jockey has yet to be been confirmed for Caller One on Saturday but Chapman is as little concerned about that as he is about the horse stepping out on to grass. "He's not a difficult horse to ride," he said. "All he needs is for the jockey to point him in the right direction and leave his mouth alone. I don't think the turf is a problem, either. He has worked fine on it and I'm sure it was his foot caused his Singapore flop, not the surface."

History, unfamiliarity and injury may be the least of Caller One's obstacles this week. Aidan O'Brien has chosen his six-furlong target, the highlight of a one-off fifth Royal day and with a new Group One status, to reintroduce last year's champion juvenile Johannesburg after his Kentucky Derby failure. But Chapman is not fazed by the Ballydoyle juggernaut. "Over this distance I can't think of anyone we've ever been afraid of," he said. "We're not going to start now." Fighting talk for a fighting horse.