Yorkshire Jockeys Horse Racing

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Star trainer Mark Johnston is hoping to become top trainer for a second successive season at this year’s Go Racing In Yorkshire Summer Festival, which gets under way at Ripon this Saturday (July 16).

“Being the leading trainer at the Go Racing In Yorkshire Summer Festival is great, though it is not something you can specifically target. However, I am planning to have lot of runners over the nine days and hope enough of them will win to give me the title again” he said.

Johnston, along with his son Charlie, who is his assistant trainer, was hosting the media at his state-of-the-art yard in Middleham to launch the 2016 Festival on Monday and plans to set the tone for his challenge with a possible six runners on the opening day.

That first day salvo is likely to include Notarised, winner of the Old Newton Cup at Haydock Park in 2015 and who is at last getting some respite from the handicapper after 12 months of toiling on a mark of over 100.

Notarised, who was part of the third lot whose work was watched by the press corps, has been dropped to a mark of 98, just 2lbs more than his Old Newton Cup winning rating.

Johnston’s horses have been in great form of late and he has recently passed the century mark for the year, putting him well on course to reach his season’s target – a very precise 247 winners, which would be a personal best by some margin.

“That was the target at the start of the year, but I have lost a few horses lately and some of the Godolphin horses are due to leave shortly to be prepared for Dubai, but I am still hopeful of getting there” he said.

The Summer Festival, now in its 10th year, brings together all nine Yorkshire courses with meetings on consecutive days and while the racing for the centrepiece, the aim is to provide fun for all the family.

Having taken part for the first time in 2015, Wetherby is not part of the Festival this year while a new grandstand is being built, but will be back in the fold for next year.

The Festival moves from Ripon to Redcar, on to Beverley then to Catterick, Doncaster, Thirsk, York and finally Pontefract on July 24, when the leading trainer will receive a weekend break at the luxury Goldsborough Hall along with the Byerley Turk Trophy, named after one of racing’s three founding sires, who is buried in the Hall’s grounds.

Duing this year’s Summer Festival, leading journalist David Yates of the Daily Mirror will be cycling from course to course, a distance of nearly 450 miles, to raise funds for Jack Berry House in memory of his press room colleague Ray Gilpin, who died last year.

David would welcome anyone wanting to ride along during his eight days in the saddle, but to support him visit https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/goracing.

Johnston said: “It’s a great effort by David and I am hoping to join him when he rides from York to Pontefract”.