MORE than any other sport, horseracing seems to exist in a perpetual flight from the present, always in a frenetic search for the mythical land of 'Wheresnext.' Watch the telly after any significant race, a microphone on a lollipop stick is shoved into the face of the winning rider and more often than not the first question sounds something like this: "Great ride Johnny, where do you think he will go next?"

Before Johnny has time to properly deflect the question he's back in the winner's enclosure where his trainer will be immersed among racing writers, pens hot and ready. "Great training performance, Aidan. Where's next for him?"

It can be a little unreal at times. When Sea The Stars won the Arc last year, the celebrations for what he'd just achieved were immediately diluted by a speculative frenzy on whether or not he would go to Los Angeles for the Breeders Cup. Actually, it's more than unreal; it's totally daft, unless the particular race in question was for two-year-olds. In that case frenzied speculation over the future is okay. 'Wheresnext' is the place that two-year-olds live.

And that place is in Newmarket next Saturday where the Dewhurst Stakes, a Group One contest over seven furlongs for two-year-olds will take place for the 135th time. You'd need to be viewing the world through green-tinted glasses not to acknowledge that this race is the pre-eminent indicator of classic potential on either side of the Irish Sea since a gentleman named Thomas Gee dreamed it up to advertise his Dewhurst stud in 1875. The first ever winner, Kisber, won the Epsom Derby a year later. The second winner, Chatant, won the 2000 Guineas and his victory was followed the season after by the filly Pilgrimage who went one better and took both the 1000 and 2000 Guineas during her classic season.

And so began tradition. The 10th Dewhurst winner, Ormonde, won the Triple Crown as a three-year-old – a feat repeated almost a century later by the great Nijinsky – and between these two legends there came an annual parade of brilliance including Hyperion, Crepello and Pinza.

In the years after Nijinsky the Dewhurst has been won by Mill Reef, Wollow, The Minstrel, El Gran Senor, Generous and New Approach.

By now you are probably getting the point. The Dewhurst Stakes still stands like a T-junction signpost at the intersection of buoyant aspirations and dreams of glory. Turn right for a shot at immortality; mediocrity waits to the left. At times this season has trundled unexcitedly from week to week with just the odd glimpse of brilliance from the likes of Harbinger, Workforce and Canford Cliffs. It all makes this intersection far more interesting than normal, because there is something weird afoot amongst the juveniles.

That rarest thing in horseracing, a cluster of greatness, seems to have formed, and most of the cluster is en route to Newmarket. Frankel, Dream Ahead, Saamid, Dunboyne Express and Native Khan are all intended runners, so expect to hear loud and often this week that next Saturday's contest could be the finest two-year-old race in the history of the sport.

Of course it's always safer to wrap yourself up snugly in a blanket of cynicism when claims like this are made. The list of 'greatest ever' juvenile races is a long one and some of them have been won by horses such as Gorytus, Tromos and Try My Best who were rarely ever heard of again. Even so, you would need to be a hard-hearted follower of racing not to look forward to this year's Dewhurst without the odd hair spiking on the back of the neck.

First Frankel, the odds-on favourite. His trainer, Henry Cecil, who knows a thing or three about decent youngsters, has described him as the best two-year-old he has trained since Wollow, guided to victory in 1975 by Frankie Dettori's daddy. Frankel is unbeaten in his three starts to date and has won his last two by a combined distance of 23 lengths, but this only really tells half the story.

At Doncaster in September he won a three-runner race by 13 lengths in such a fast time that people joked that he was really a dressed down four-year old. Of course, three-runner contests are notorious for telling you less than nothing but the second that day, Rainbow Springs, finished third in the Grand Criterium at Longchamp last Sunday, a line of form that suggests Frankel could have won that Group One by a dozen lengths.

If that seems too good to be true then his 10-length steamroller job in the Royal Lodge at Ascot next time out nailed any doubts and the Timeform organisation labelled it "one of the best performances from any juvenile in recent years". Frankel is already a ridiculously short-priced favourite for next year's classics but then again it is ridiculous when two-year-olds start winning group races by National Hunt distances. If he does it again on Saturday the winter will shorten.

It's uncanny that Dream Ahead has come along in the same generation as Frankel, but then music waited all its life before The Beatles and The Rolling Stones arrived on the same bus. Like his market rival, Dream Ahead is unbeaten in three and also like Frankel his performances have been eye-rubbingly brilliant. Again, Group One two-year-old races aren't meant to be won by nine lengths on the bridle, but this is exactly what Dream Ahead did in the Middle Park a fortnight ago. The horse foundering immediately in his afterburner was Strong Suit, the winner of the Coventry Stakes at Royal Ascot and already rated 115 by Timeform, a very relevant yardstick. But even if these two weren't in the race the presence of the unbeaten trio, Saamid, the best hope Godolphin have had of a champion home-bred juvenile for a long while, Native Khan and Kevin Prendergast's Dunboyne Express would still make this an exceptional renewal of the Dewhurst.

Frankel looks to be a freak, a bull of a two-year-old. By Galileo from the family of the late developing Powerscourt there is no reason why he should be this precocious but equally, with that pedigree, no reason either why he shouldn't be a top three-year-old. If he delivers on the course against this Dewhurst field the answer to the post- race lollipop question is blindingly obvious. 'Wheresnext' lies greatness.