John Dunlop has revealed the secret of his phenomenal start to the flat race season as the new gallops.

The Arundel trainer has shot to the top of the trainers' list with 18 winners from 52 starters and a profit to a £1 stake for punters of £34.

While Newmarket trainers have been struggling to get runners onto the track, Dunlop has also had 12 horses placed and much of this is down to work done in the winter.

The one-mile woodchip gallop was replaced with a patent surface known as polytrack. It has enabled the Castle Stables' horses to reach peak fitness ahead of most other trainers.

Polytrack consists of a mixture of silica and chopped rubber, polyester and flock, the substance that tailors use to pad shoulders and lapels of suits. The surface is then dressed with hot wax. The primary advantage of polytrack is its longevity and drainage capability.

Woodchip surfaces deteriorate quite quickly and, in the park at Arundel, the one-mile gallop had become inconsistent.

Dunlop, who entertained 200 members of the Goodwood Raceowners' Group, for whom he trains two horses, this week, said: "If we'd had to rely on that in a winter and spring as wet as it has been, things would have become very difficult.

"We were lucky in that the polytrack was completed and ready for use in February, just in time for the horses to begin serious work."

It is many years since the Dunlop team started using artificial surfaces rather than grass. That came about because, with more than 150 horses, there wasn't sufficient turf available to be kept in good condition for horses to work on.

Dunlop had to construct two all-weather strips to compensate and find that he was ahead of the game, because at that time the majority of trainers relied entirely on turf gallops.

Newmarket, home to major trainers such as Henry Cecil, Clive Brittain, Sir Michael Stoute and Dunlop's son Edward, does have artificial surfaces, but a major advantage at Arundel is that the polytrack gallop has an incline of 250 feet in one mile, something that flat-as-a-pancake Newmark cannot replicate.

Once Dunlop's horses are fit, they don't go quicker than a trot on turf until they've set foot on a racetrack. The method is tried and tested and this particular season it is paying handsome dividends. Since polytrack is usable down to minus 12 degrees C, it is a genuine all-weather surface.

Silver Grey Lady is one of Dunlop's winners. The horse won the Sanctuary Group Fillies Stakes at Newbury last Friday, at the astonishing price of 10-1, when it realised a dream for Philippa and Nicholas Cooper.

The Coopers own Normandie stud at Kirdford and, to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary, Nicholas bought the yearling filly as a present for his wife.

Now Silver Grey Lady will be aimed at the Lingfield Oaks Trial on May 12, a race won by Out Of Shot and Kiliniski for Castle Stables in 1984 and 1985.

The £10,000 Ladbrokes Sussex Supreme Maiden Stakes is the highlight of next Thursday's card at Brighton (2.30pm start).

The race, over one mile and two furlongs, is designed as a prep race for Derby trial hopefuls.

Last year's winner Trumpet Sound was unplace in his trial at Lingfield.