And now the thinking starts, writes Tony Stafford. Ryan Moore has won two of the last nine editions of the Derby at Epsom for the Aidan O’Brien/Coolmore juggernaut, on Auguste Rodin in 2023 and City Of Troy the following year.
O’Brien has won six of the last nine. That means Ryan missed out on Wings Of Eagles (Padraig Beggy) in 2017; Anthony Van Dyck (Seamus Heffernan), two years later; Serpentine in a deserted Epsom in Covid year 2020 (Emmet McNamara) and Lambourn (Wayne Lordan) last year.
If you think one in three is bad luck, imagine Ryan’s conundrum this time around. Ballydoyle has the first five in the betting (or did before Pierre Bonnard’s defeat at Leopardstown yesterday) as O’Brien aims to make it 12 wins in the race, extending his own record. As previous history shows, he can win with any of them.
Victory for the stable will inevitably extend Michael Tabor and Sue Magnier’s tally to an eye-boggling 13 - Pour Moi won it for them from the Andre Fabre yard in 2011. Long-time associate Derrick Smith came on board after the initial two victories for the stable, first for legendary stallion Galileo (2001), and High Chaparral the following year.
The two winners that Ryan did ride in that period (he also has two more earlier) both have their first foals on the ground this year, so there’s a chance some might be seen at the foal sales in the autumn. It’s likely though that many will be retained for racing. Those that do come on the market will be almost as eagerly sought as the initial progeny of Frankel following his unblemished racing career which gave such credit to Galileo, his sire.
Of the other quartet, Wings Of Eagles was a 40/1 shot when winning his Derby and then broke down within sight of the winning post at The Curragh, never to race again. He’s standing for €4k at one of Coolmore’s NH stud farms and is already getting some nice jumpers to his name.
Anthony Van Dyck was fatally injured during the running of the 2020 Melbourne Cup, won by Aidan O’Brien’s son Joseph with Australian-owned seven-year-old Twilight Payment.
Serpentine’s story deserves re-telling. In the Derby he was one of six O’Brien runners, the most fancied being Moore’s mount, Mogul. He was never to get into the race, like many others, while McNamara immediately sent Serpentine to the lead. He was a dozen lengths clear of the field at the three-furlong pole and held on to win unchallenged by five lengths with a strong tailwind blowing him home.
McNamara, who didn’t record a single race ride in his native Ireland that year, was immediately replaced on the horse, Christophe Soumillon taking over as Mogul and Moore gained their revenge in the Grand Prix de Paris that September. Mogul, a 3.4 million guinea yearling, won two more big races later that year. Coolmore originally stood him as a NH stallion. Now, along with fellow former O’Brien trainee Capri, he remains in Coolmore ownership, both horses having relocated to Wood Hall Stud in Shropshire, fee £2,500.
Serpentine, having collected the Derby on only his fourth race following a wide margin maiden victory at the third time of asking, never approached those heights in his career for Aidan, even trying 2m4f for the Gold Cup at Ascot the following season.
In all, Serpentine, who was gelded and then sent to Australia, has now raced 31 times and managed only one more success – over 1m2f. His latest effort on New Year’s Day 2026 was in a Group 2 handicap in which he finished 14th of 15! I doubt we’ll see much more of the nine-year-old, but in Australia anything goes.
Lambourn might have been demonstrating something of a Serpentine manoeuvre last year when making all while Ryan on favourite Delacroix got stuck in traffic some way behind and finished only ninth. That Delacroix could return to the track as soon as the Coral-Eclipse a month later and beat Ombudsman revealed his true merit. He stands at €40k at Coolmore.
Lambourn’s successful return in the ten-furlong Huxley Stakes at Chester last week confirmed him as more than just a one-pacer. It took plenty of pluck to hold off Bay City Roller but whether he’ll beat stablemate Jan Bruegel, not to mention Calandagan, in the £1 million Coolmore Coronation Cup at Epsom next month is another matter.
Until Isaac Newton showed his limitations in the Lingfield Derby Trial, won by William Haggas’s Maltese Cross narrowly from Ralph Beckett’s Bay Of Brilliance, O’Brien had mopped up all the colts’ – and for that matter fillies’ – Epsom trials.
As a result we have Benvenuto Cellini as 5/2 favourite after sluicing home in the Chester Vase; Constitution River next at 5/1 after winning a no-contest Dee Stakes following a long layoff; while Christmas Day, due to run in the Dante on Thursday at York, is a 12/1 shot along with Futurity winner Hawk Mountain, who reappeared with a smooth win at Longchamp in the Prix de Guiche a week yesterday.
In between we had Pierre Bonnard, smart last year but behind Christmas Day when they both returned to action last month. His effort in the five-runner trial at Leopardstown yesterday when beaten in a tight finish by son Joseph’s James J Braddock would seem to have diminished this one-time strong candidate’s chance on June 6.
And it doesn’t necessarily end there. After Aidan’s big five, there were another 11 still in the Betfred-sponsored Classic at the latest stage, from 37 entered all told. There’s still time for a Wings Of Eagles to emerge, although he did win the Dee Stakes, or a Serpentine to come from nowhere.
It won’t be an easy choice for Ryan – let’s hope the best jockey of his time gets it right. He certainly has come back from last year’s long spell on the sidelines with renewed vigour and possibly his best-ever standard, and that’s saying a lot!
Among the fillies, Amelia Earhart (5/2) supplanted the Gosdens’ I’m The One (5/1) as Oaks favourite with a comfortable success over that rival in the Cheshire Oaks, and it’s big odds bar the pair with the exception of Diamond Necklace, more likely heading back to Paris for the Prix de Diane. That Chester race felt beforehand like a re-match between the two big Oaks contending stables on a par with when Enable (John Gosden) easily beat O’Brien’s very smart filly Alluringly in the Vase before trouncing Rhododendron, Auguste Rodin’s mother, by five lengths at Epsom on her way to glory.
Over at Longchamp yesterday, under awful weather conditions and rapidly deteriorating going, the O’Brien team were expecting more success in the two French mile Classics. In the Poulains, for colts, late switch Puerto Rico, who was initially regarded as Coolmore’s 2,000 Guineas choice instead leaving that race to its runner-up Gstaad, started the 11/10 favourite. Disappointingly, he could finish only fourth behind the Francis-Henri Graffard, Mickael Barzalona, Aga Khan Studs horse Rayif.
The winner, drawn ideally on the inside, raced just behind the sole UK runner, Karl Burke’s Hankelow, then quickened off the last slight bend and won smoothly from a challenging pack. They were led home by the Andre Fabre/Godolphin runner Komorebi and William Buick, who finished strongly to pip Hankelow for second. Puerto Rico was a one-paced fourth and stablemate Dorset sixth.
In the fillies race, the Pouliches, O’Brien had the favourite in Diamond Necklace. Unbeaten in three starts at two, including in the Marcel Boussac on Arc Day, she and Ryan followed the Barzalona route up the inside and strode away majestically for an extremely easy success.
A filly from the first crop of the very smart St Mark’s Basilica, Diamond Necklace has the look of a potential champion. She was not inconvenienced by the soft ground and already it’s shaping up as a battle between her and 1,000 Guineas winner True Love, not to mention Precise, as to which is the best and where they might all be going next time out.
This was surprisingly only a second win for O’Brien in the race after Rose Gypsy as long ago as 2001, when she was a contemporary of Galileo. A lot of water has flown under Coolmore’s bridge since then.
**
Just one oddity from Saturday’s racing. When William Knight’s homebred five-year-old mare Royal Velvet made a successful step up to Pattern racing with a smooth success in the Group 3 Chartwell Stakes at Lingfield, that was her ninth win from only 21 starts. Of her 12 defeats, none has been in second place and she has recorded only one third placing.
That shows as she has gone from a rating of 69 to 99, when a race gets serious there is usually only one winner. Congratulations to Suzie Hartley, her owner, recently the subject of open-heart surgery but there to see her pride and joy give her a recuperative boost. It won’t be the last time either. Ascot here they come!
- TS
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