Mark Johnston remembers Doncaster delights with Double Trigger

When Lazy Griff strides onto the Doncaster turf ahead of his quest for Betfred St Leger glory, he will have the spirit of Double Trigger urging him home at the track he once made his own.

The achievements of Mark Johnston’s exceptional stayer are still lauded to this day on Town Moor, with the triple Doncaster Cup hero immortalised in statue form overlooking the parade ring around which he would once swagger.

And 30 years on from capping a phenomenal year by winning his first of three staying prizes in South Yorkshire, Johnston remembers fondly one of the undoubted greats of his era.

“In 1995 we felt there was nothing that could touch him over those trips in the UK so we went there full of confidence,” said Johnston of his first Doncaster Cup success, which came in a season he had already claimed the Gold Cup at Royal Ascot and its Goodwood equivalent.

“The ironic thing was he wasn’t champion stayer that year which was down to the way it was calculated and Strategic Choice was actually given it.

“Nowadays he would have been comfortably champion stayer as he had won all the Cup races that year and all the British two-mile and above Group races that season. It was very much his heyday.”

It was always going to be a difficult task for Double Trigger to recreate the halcyon summer of 1995 in the subsequent years, but the popular North Yorkshire-trained gelding with the famous white blaze would always reserve his best for his beloved Goodwood and the faithful on Town Moor.

He would win both events three times in total, bowing out in style when following up a final Goodwood Cup triumph with a fitting farewell in front of a vociferous home crowd who urged their hero on to one last victory and a day Johnston will never forget.

Johnston said: “His very last run was in the Doncaster Cup and we had started to have the odd soundness niggle so we had decided beforehand that might be his last run. It was great to bow out on top.

“I remember they had two different paddock sheets ready, one in case he won and one in case something else won and it was sponsored by the train company (GNER) who went and named a train after him.

“It was great times and of course Doncaster built a statue of him which is obviously still there.

“He won the Goodwood Cup and the Doncaster Cup in his last two starts and that was pretty special.”

Double Trigger would appear five times at Doncaster in his career and it was a year before establishing himself as a member of the staying elite that he would attempt to end Johnston’s quest for a victory in the St Leger.

He would ultimately finish third to Moonax in his Classic tilt, with Johnston also going on to end his career without holding the world’s oldest Classic trophy aloft, but personal disappointment will be surpassed if son Charlie could conquer the Town Moor showpiece with his dual-Derby placed Lazy Griff.

“I suppose one of the things that is often forgotten about Double Trigger is he finished third in the St Leger and people often think of him as a two-mile horse and an older horse but he was top-class as a three-year-old as well,” explained Johnston.

“I never won the Leger and it is a race that I would loved to have won and it will always be a frustration to me that I never managed it. But it would be wonderful if that was something Charlie could do so early in his career.

“We were at Doncaster a week or so ago for the sales and the grass was all yellow and all hard but the rain will make a big, big difference as he looked to be not enjoying the ground at all at the Curragh and was third despite that.

“We feel he will be significantly better for the extra two furlongs and cut in the ground and will take a lot of beating.”