FOR more than a decade, Middleham trainer Mark Johnston has been telling anyone who would listen that he would ‘never have another Attraction’. As he looks ahead to Saturday’s QIPCO 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket, however, he is not so sure.

It is not just that Elarqam, one of his two entries in the opening Classic of the season, is no bigger than 6-1 to follow in Attraction’s footsteps on the Rowley Mile. It is not even that he describes the three-year-old colt as the “spitting image” of Attraction, who won the English and Irish 1,000 Guineas in 2004 before claiming another three Group One prizes before she was retired.

No, when it comes to Elarqam’s prospects of emulating Attraction, it is all in the genes. Attraction is Elarqam’s dam, and he was sired by the mighty Frankel, arguably the greatest British Flat horse of all time. When it comes to racing royalty, you don’t get much better bred than that.

“Elarqam is the absolute spitting image of Attraction,” said Johnston, whose only 2,000 Guineas success came courtesy of Mister Baileys in 1994. “If you could draw a blueprint of what a colt out of Attraction would look like, you’d draw him.

“It’s a huge pleasure to be sent the offspring of Attraction to train. Up to date, I think she’s had 11 foals and this was only the third that we had been sent – the first two were winners, both good horses – and we’ve now also got a Dubawi two-year-old which Sheikh Hamdan has kindly sent to us.

“Elarqam has to improve, but I have a lot of faith of in his ability. And in a lot of ways it’s more exciting than it was with Attraction as being by Frankel out of Attraction, he’s the best-bred horse I’ve ever trained, the best-bred horse by a country mile that I have ever taken to a Classic.

“The implications of what sort of stallion he would be, or how popular he might be as a stallion if he won the QIPCO 2000 Guineas don’t bear thinking about.”

Elarqam served notice of his ability when he cruised home in his first outing on a racecourse at York in September, winning by more than three lengths without really being pushed.

He followed up with another win at Newmarket in the Group Three Tattersalls Stakes, over the course and distance he will encounter on Saturday, and having had a racecourse gallop on the Guineas course during the recent Craven meeting, Johnston could have not have been more pleased with his preparations.

He is behind the Aidan O’Brien-trained pair Gustav Klimt and Saxon Warrior in the market, as well as Charlie Appleby’s Craven winner Masar, but might well have the most scope for improvement given his light campaign as a two-year-old.

Frankel’s presence in his pedigree suggests he should be ideally suited by a mile, although Johnston has always wondered if he would prefer further and is already eyeing a potential tilt at the Investec Derby later in June.

“It wasn’t exactly a hard piece of work (during the Craven meeting), and he hardly ended up seeing the other two horses, but he needed the experience of a day out and it’s a concern for me going into the QIPCO 2000 Guineas with only two runs under his belt,” he said.

“In actual fact, it was a piece of work he’d done here (at Middleham) under Joe Fanning with Mildenberger (winner of the Bet365 Feilden Stakes) that was the most important. Joe said he was really pleased with that and felt he’d really come on mentally over the winter.

“After he won his second race, Sheikh Hamdan said that would be for it for the season. I might have run him once more, perhaps in the Royal Lodge, but Sheikh Hamdan made that call.

“At that time, he and Jim Crowley both believed firmly that Elarqam would want a mile and a quarter this year, so we are going to the QIPCO 2000 Guineas saying, ‘This is maybe not the whole story’, but the Guineas is the best Derby trial and if he was not to finish in the first three, you could well see him going on to the Dante and possibly to Epsom. That would not be impossible at all.

“The reality is that the Classics are still the most important races in the calendar and the hardest to win. But, on everything I have seen so far, I do have faith in his ability.”

Like Elarqam, Attraction went into the 1,000 Guineas without a prep run, having just had a racecourse gallop at Ripon, but the filly was stronger on racecourse experience having won all five starts as a juvenile.

“This is nothing like it was with Attraction,” said Johnston. “On that day, I believed that if she stayed, she would win. At that stage with Attraction, I firmly believed she was the best filly in Europe.

Johnston will also saddle Cardsharp, winner of the Arqana July Stakes, in the 2,000 Guineas, with the colt having finished third in the Norfolk Stakes at Royal Ascot during a busy juvenile campaign.

His only start this season was a disappointment as he finished down the field at Deauville, but Johnston feels there were mitigating factors for that run.

“It was a pretty awful run in pretty awful ground,” he said. “But the horse has plenty of form at the highest level. Take out his bad run at Deauville and he only had one other disappointing performance in the Dewhurst, when he was unlucky.

“He was always running against the best horses and he brings Group One form into the race but we don’t know – we don’t know about trip and we don’t know if he’s good enough. He could well be a sprinter, but he’ll go to the QIPCO 2000 Guineas and we’ll hopefully find out more.”