Chris McGrath on Racing: Compelling narrative of the Turf needs no help from trite marketing to spin its tale

Oh, gosh, this panacea, this Sovereign remedy – what kind of culture plate can its creators have used? It is smeared with glibness, with the vain, trite stains of marketing. A Champions League for racing! A Formula One series! What overweening nonsense.

Needless to say, anyone who cherishes the sport must welcome £3m in extra prize-money, spread across the 10 races to be incorporated into the inaugural Sovereign Series in 2010. The notorious ratio of investment and reward for racehorse owners in Britain has made it incumbent on one and all to focus on that juicy bottom line, and not to quibble with the detail.

But honesty demands a closer look. These grandiose analogies are thoroughly specious, a shameless mating call to sponsors. Who knows? Maybe any corporation big enough to contemplate funding the series is also big enough to afford self-important fantasists of their own. Formula One has ruthless commercial coherence. This scheme has none whatsoever.

True, its authors may fancy themselves "ruthless" in the challenge they have set broadcasters. Others might prefer "reckless". Last time its rights came up for renewal, Channel 4 was within an ace of abandoning the sport it has served so loyally. It was only the intervention of an even greater friend of British racing, Sheikh Mohammed, that saved the day. The cherry-picking BBC, meanwhile, may be irritated to find itself obliged to cram a whole lot of other fruit into its basket.

Terrestrial broadcasters, not without reason, view racing as a minority sport. Unless they can be deceived by this confection, at least one of them will be perfectly within their rights to wash their hands of the game. And much the same can be said of sponsors, who had conspicuously lost interest even before the straitening of the economy.

The whole premise of this enterprise is a misapprehension. It has become modish, in recent years, for marketing men to lament a lack of "narrative" in the Flat season. Never mind the way they are poisoning that word. They could not be more wrong. The defining charm of the Flat calendar has always been its mesmerising cycles.

The moment the 2,000 Guineas winner passes the post, everyone looks at his pedigree and wonders about the Derby. The moment the Derby is won, they wonder about the older horses. Admittedly the modern spread of international opportunity has stretched the midsummer schedule thinly, as can be seen at Sandown this afternoon. But it is going to take more than the £2m bonuses for connections on the Sovereign podium for the big players to risk leaving their champions short of fuel for the autumn.

The real winner may be the Emirates Airline Champion Stakes at Newmarket in October. It is certainly conceivable that a horse in Sovereign contention might be tempted towards the final leg, instead of the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe or Breeders' Cup. But the feeble example of other ambitious schemes, such as the Summer Triple Crown and the World Series, suggests otherwise.

Unlike Formula One, unlike the Champions League, this is a hotchpotch of disparate events. Some are confined to three-year-olds, some to older horses. In distance, they straddle very different disciplines. The organisers also bandied around their ambition to stand comparison with the Open, or Wimbledon. But those events owe nothing to artifice, everything to history – just like these 10 great races. Happily, an extra £3m prizemoney can only fortify their standing. The same amount, however, is also being pledged to marketing. And that tells you all you need to know about its banal provenance.

Mount Nelson form choice for victory

In fairness to the creators of the Sovereign Series, the big race at Sandown today induces a twitching anxiety in those jealous of Britain's racing legacy. The convergence of so many bit players from Group One level gives the Coral Eclipse Stakes a decidedly Group Two look.

The solitary Group One success in the field belongs to Mount Nelson (above), who won the Criterium de Saint-Cloud as a juvenile, but then disappeared and eventually managed just one start as a three-year-old. It is worth remembering, however, that Kieren Fallon – at the time still riding work at Ballydoyle – last spring nominated Mount Nelson as the stable's most likely Derby colt. And each of the three starts he has made this season represented a giant leap forward.

MOUNT NELSON (nap 3.20) was beaten barely a length by his stablemate, Haradasun, in the Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot, despite being short of room, in the process strongly hinting that he might do better again over this distance.

Hoh Mike (2.10) also ran his best race in a while when fifth at the royal meeting, staying on strongly late on, and the stiff finish here can prompt a repeat of last year's success in the opener.

Godolphin have an interesting candidate for the Toteswinger Handicap in the lightly raced Gold Sovereign (2.40), and the stable has another one on the upgrade at Haydock in Folk Opera (next best 3.00). The Bet365 Old Newton Cup meanwhile gives Mad Rush an opportunity to get lucky at last, but Camps Bay (3.35) looks better value after meeting misfortunes of his own behind the favourite at Ascot.

Dutrow keeps drug debate on the boil

This is getting better by the week. When his champion colt first brought Richard Dutrow to global attention, his peppery, anti-Establishment history and opinions seemed merely to smoulder in the background. But the defeat of Big Brown in the Belmont Stakes, and the general hoopla over his trainer's attitude to drugs, has since ignited a firestorm in the American sport.

Dutrow has always shot from the hip, and last week he was so vexed by press reaction to his latest drugs violation, itself a relatively trivial one, that he summoned journalists to his barn in Aqueduct and tried to put them straight on a few things. He said he would welcome stricter drug regulations. He would thrive – unlike certain other trainers he could mention. And would.

"How does Oscar Barrera go from winning no races for 30 years and then he becomes the best trainer ever for two years?" he asked the New York Daily News. "And then they stop him and he goes 0-for-140. Same thing with Gasper Moschera. Where is he at? How did he become the man in New York by laying carpet and then they stop him and he gets out of the game. You look at this jerk down here, Contessa. How does he set records? How does he do it? Come on, man."

Gary Contessa, currently New York's leading trainer by winners, was astonished. "The guy is in recovery," he shrugged.

Moschera, who dominated the New York scene in the mid-Nineties but retired six years ago, was insulted by the insinuations. He told the New York Post that he had never had a positive test in a 25-year career. "Dutrow?" he said. "They shouldn't test his horses, they should test him. I have no problem with him. I wish him all the luck. But he should thank God, and shut his mouth. He talks like a jerk, but he can talk intelligent, too. He's got a brain, but it's all being thrown away. He should watch The Godfather, and he'll learn about what to say and what not to say."

New Approach has tempting target

His implosion in the Belmont prompted many sceptics to speculate that Big Brown would never be seen again, but he apparently remains on course for the Haskell Stakes at Monmouth Park on 3 August. Until then, of course, we must wonder if he burned himself out in his brief, meteoric rise.

In the meantime, the champion older horse, Curlin, continues to prepare the ground for a pioneering tilt at the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe in October. At Churchill Downs on Tuesday his trainer, Steve Asmussen, galloped Curlin on turf for the first time and declared that he moved every bit as fluidly as he does on dirt. The proof of the pudding will be a race on grass next weekend, either in the Man O' War Stakes at Belmont or a less demanding contest at Arlington.

Potentially all this is highly pertinent to the connections of New Approach. For if they feel disposed to match the admirable sense of adventure in Curlin's principal owner, Jess Jackson, they may well choose to send their own champion in precisely the opposite direction.

The Breeders' Cup Classic will this year be run on a new, synthetic surface at Santa Anita, one far more congenial to European raiders. And with Curlin possibly heading this way, and uncertainty over Big Brown, there is a very tempting vacuum among the home defence.

Jim Bolger, New Approach's trainer, must have been grieved by the muscle problem that required him to miss the Irish Derby last Sunday. But perhaps it will prove a blessing in disguise. Bolger applies the same unsparing work ethic to horses as to people, and a tough midsummer campaign for New Approach might have left little in reserve for a Breeders' Cup challenge. This enforced break could yet turn out to be a lucky one.