SOME minutes matter more than others. Some, good or bad, are never to be forgotten. The 57.97 seconds it took Marsha to beat Lady Aurelia by just a nose to win the Group One Nunthorpe Stakes at York in August live long in Sir Mark Prescott’s memory.

The two flying fillies are re-matched in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint at Del Mar on Saturday night but Prescott, who has been training at Newmarket since 1970, is maintaining his phlegmatic manner, unfazed by the prospect of Del Mar’s sharp contours and short home straight over five furlongs.

“Somebody said to me that, compared to Del Mar, Chester’s a galloping track,” he said with a deep chuckle. “We took her to Chelmsford – for a tight, left-handed bend – and she flew round it but she was perhaps two off the bend. I think the draw will be very important.”

A Breeders’ Cup winner would be high on the list of important races won by Prescott but nothing can replace a day at Wincanton in 1964.

“You weren’t allowed to ride until you were 18 in those days. The trainer [Sid Kernick] told me I could ride and when I said I was too young he put down 1946 instead of 1948, so the Jockey Club think I’m 72.”

Prescott was riding a horse called Monarain in a three-runner race and recalls the magic minutes with absolute clarity.

“It was September 17 and I can remember walking the course, buying the card and they had Dean Martin singing Everybody Loves Somebody on the radio in the card sellers’ hut.

“It was the first race and I walked up the course afterwards with my girlfriend and there was an old boy by the last hurdle banging in divots and he said ‘what won the first race?’

“I said ‘I did’. It was just fantastic; never will I have a feeling like that again. I thought I was the Messiah that National Hunt racing was waiting for.”

Two years later it was a case of the resurrection when Prescott broke his back in a fall at the now defunct track at Wye and it was a small miracle that he walked out of hospital nine months later and went on to succeed Jack Waugh at Heath House Stables.

One minute Prescott regrets came at the Houghton Sales at Newmarket in 1972 when he was the under-bidder for big chestnut colt who, having been purchased for 5,200 guineas and named Snow Knight, would win the 1974 Derby.

“That would have changed my career,” he said, heavy on the understatement. “We got to four-eight and Major Bourne [one of Prescott’s owners] said ‘go on’ and I said ‘it’s enough’,” the wince that briefly creased Prescott’s features as eloquent as his words. “I think all those people who say ‘if I could live my life over again I wouldn’t change a thing’ are not very bright.”

Prescott is bright enough to be aware of the scale of task facing Marsha taking on American sprinters on their own, lightning-fast, turf.

“At York everything was in her favour and we were probably lucky to get up on the line,” he said. “ I’m not really expecting that much luck this time. She has experience of going left-handed. She has won at Catterick and at Dundalk, but they were when she wasn’t going nearly as fast.

“They must go fast-fast to give me a chance and she’s got to turn well because it’s only a furlong-and-a-half straight.”

No time for mistakes because it only takes a minute to win it.