A friend asked me the other day, “If a bookmaker offered you even money about Aidan O’Brien winning the Derby this year, would you take it?”, writes Tony Stafford.
The question arose after the pre-York blanket dominance in the trials at Chester, Lingfield and Leopardstown and before the possibly temporary reputation tarnishing of The Lion In Winter, that one in the ruck behind Ralph Beckett’s Pride Of Arras in the Dante Stakes.
Amazingly, in view of the ease of the Ackroyd family’s horse’s victory on the Knavesmire, The Lion In Winter has hardened back in price after an initial ease by the bookmakers. In some places he’s a shorter price than his York conqueror.
Michael Tabor had suggested the day before that The Lion In Winter was running later in the piece than is normal for returning Derby candidates from the Ballydoyle stable but then, on June 7, the Derby is as late as it can be for a first Saturday in the month.
Anyway, the latest ante-post prices for the big race list the Leopardstown trial winner Delacroix as favourite at 5/2 ahead of Godolphin’s 2,000 Guineas hero Ruling Court (4/1), emphasised by trainer Charlie Appleby during York as firmly on target for Epsom Downs.
But after him and the two Dante protagonists, three of the next four are from the Coolmore team and their joint odds take out 66% so appreciably more than the requisite 50% for even money. And that’s not all their potential runners which, as we said last week, do not preclude an O’Brien win at long odds.
I was minutely involved with the win of Oath in 1999 and for me that seems not so long ago, recalling embarrassingly cavorting next to the unsaddling enclosure with his lad after his win for the Sir Henry Cecil stable and the Thoroughbred Corporation of Prince Ahmed Salman. It’s salutary to remember that Aidan hadn’t even won the race by that time.
Now he has – and how – with ten of the last 24 (or 42%) falling to him. Interestingly, until he starts getting different owners in the yard, he still won’t match either Sue (wife of John) Magnier and Tabor who have 11 thanks to the win of the Andre Fabre-trained Pour Moi in 2011 on top of Aidan’s ten.
By last year, they had all exceeded the nine of Lester Piggott, the foremost Derby jockey of all time. Piggott’s skill at riding the difficult Epsom track was only exceeded by the powers of persuasion he used to get on a feasible candidate when he didn’t have a retained ride (and sometimes when he did!) through his long career.
As I write on this Sunday morning, there are still 20 days remaining before the Derby and you can add another three since the Dante. In normal circumstances, 23 days between runs is rarely regarded as inadequate time to recover from the early exertions and build on that for an improved display next time.
Last year, City Of Troy had 28 days between an abject performance in the 2,000 Guineas and his dominating display in the Derby. What’s a few days when they are being managed by a genius? In the meantime, Delacroix is a solid enough flag-bearer having won as I said last week the significant Leopardstown Trial in such authoritative manner.
A closer look reveals O’Brien’s first two Derby wins in successive years, Galileo and High Chaparral, were the second and third of his 17 wins in the former Derrinstown, now Leopardstown, Derby Trial (talk about hegemony – it’s more like annihilation of his training colleagues). No Derby winner has come from the race since, although Dylan Thomas in 2006 won the Irish Derby and later the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.
Another superb winner of the race was subsequent peerless stayer Yeats who was scratched from the 2004 Derby for which he was the hot favourite at the time through injury a few days before. Four Gold Cup wins in succession guaranteed his place in racing folklore and was the crowning achievement for David and Diane Nagle’s Barronstown Stud, never mind its being responsible for 29 winners of 44 Classic or Group 1 races around the world.
All in all, I say to my friend, therefore, on the stats alone, evens would be a good price, if anyone would be daring enough to offer it. I do have a sneaking feeling though that Pride Of Arras, with only two – both winning – career runs behind him, may have at least the potential improvement of the hitherto harder-worked Delacroix or even The Lion In Winter.
Then we always have the debate about which horse is the more likely to have progressed and will stretch out even further for trying 1m4f around Epsom. Usually, the class horses keep going and all the worries about stamina every year are dispelled in the two minutes and 40 seconds or thereabouts. Few, if any, of the O’Brien runners in the Derby have failed through lack of stamina. Normally, class tells.
The Coolmore boys like a little insurance and while they weren’t intimately involved in ownership at the business end of the 2,000 Guineas, it didn’t upset them too much that the Godolphin winner Ruling court is by their US-based stallion Justify, sire of course of last year’s Derby hero City Of Troy.
The 2025 Kentucky Derby a couple of weeks ago was a setback for Journalism, a horse they had bought into with a view of his standing as a stallion in their Ashford Stud in Kentucky alongside Justify and their other Triple crown winner American Pharoah when he retires from racing for the Michael McCarthy stable.
He had been outstayed at Churchill Downs by Godolphin homebred Sovereignty, but that horse was immediately declared an absentee from the next leg of the Triple Crown, the half a furlong shorter Preakness Stakes run at Pimlico last Saturday evening.
In his absence, Journalism, understandably, was the even-money favourite to get his name on the Classic honours board and, after a bit of a barging match, got up close home by half a length from Gosger.
In the old days, any interference in races in the US brought instant and inevitable disqualification. Not so now it seems, yet in France, as in everything else in that country, they have their own standards. I’ve had a few looks at the disqualification of Charlie Fellowes’ Shes Perfect after their 1,000 Guineas last weekend and declare it as legalised thieving.
Interference to Zarigana was negligible and Kieran Shoemark on the original winner was blameless, instantly correcting her leftward drift by changing his whip into his left hand. Zarigana did have a tiny inconvenience, mainly from the horse in the sandwich between the two fillies, and probably suffered the most difficulty when Mickael Barzalona dropped his whip a furlong from home. His negligence was rewarded with a promoted Classic winner. Shameful.
That coming eight days after Shoemark’s being outmanoeuvred in the 2,000 Guineas by William Buick on Ruling Court was a double kick in the teeth for the rider. Worse came in between, a public dressing-down by John Gosden, saying he and son Thady would now be choosing “best available” for their horses not already committed to retained owner arrangements.
The first painful effect of that came on Saturday in the Lockinge Stakes. Lead Artist, on his favoured fast ground, turned around Sandown form to edge out Dancing Gemini by a neck over the straight mile. In eight previous races, Shoemark had been in the saddle. Here he was supplanted on the Juddmonte-owned four-year-old by Oisin Murphy. Some transgressions are treated more leniently than others. Is that what two-tier justice is about?
The winner’s prize was £226k. Generally, jockeys receive around 8.5% of the winner’s prize, so I reckon Kieran’s ejection has already cost him £20k and the embarrassment that goes with it. That John Gosden! Some man!
- TS