How many races do you think have been started from stalls in the UK since the obscure rule change which caused such havoc in the Epsom betting ring after Christmas Day won the Betfred Derby on Saturday, writes Tony Stafford.

I would suggest thousands, but that woke alteration allowed the Epsom stewards to declare never-in-the-hunt Betfred Derby favourite Benvenuto Cellini a non-runner for getting his leg over (rather stuck in) the stalls. No doubt he’ll be getting his leg over in the proscribed way later in life. Yes, this weekend we saw the first running of the Woke Derby.

Imperfect starts have always been a part of racing. While on this very public occasion the finicky stewards decided to intervene after the fact, multiple examples of slow starts historically have been ignored.

Often on the flat, starters let the fields go, not noticing when one or more horses might be in various states of discomfort in the stalls, their jockeys imploring “wait sir, wait!” Either they do or they don’t, tough! How many times have we seen hoods coming off too late? What an unseemly dish to set before the King!

Then while jumping starts at the workaday meetings are allowed to go off where the jockeys want to be placed, at the big very public and most important meetings like Cheltenham and Aintree, again fussy officialdom often ruins the race. Multiple false starts and unsatisfactory standing still departures immediately end many horses’ chances before they go a yard.

Ahead of Saturday’s controversy, Christmas Day continued the theme that you can never ignore Aidan O’Brien’s “other runners” in the Derby. It proved a truism once more, the 7/1 winner attracting far more interest in the market than the favourite and even trumping presumed second choice Pierre Bonnard, a laboured seventh under Christophe Soumillon.

The key to finding the Derby winner is 1) with now ten of the last 15 winners (67%) of the race, it must be an Aidan horse. 2) if you ignore Ryan Moore who now has missed out on five of the last seven Coolmore winners, find a jockey that’s never got near winning it before, often one that’s never ridden in the race!

Step up Ronan Whelan. Like so many, Aidan included, Whelan spent plenty of time in his younger days with Jim Bolger. This is his second year as back up to Moore and super stand-in Wayne Lordan, and Epsom on Saturday was his ultimate reward.

It happened for Lordan with Lambourn last year and Lordan it was on the fourth O’Brien runner Action, who set the pace on Saturday with Christmas Day at his elbow. The other two Coolmore runners were held behind the nice even pace that Lordan excels at.

Into the straight it wasn’t long before Christmas Day took the lead, edging into the middle of the rain-softened ground and drawing away much as Lambourn and that other surprise O’Brien winner of the modern era, Serpentine, did in 2020. The difference this time was the ground. It had completely obliterated Calandagan in the £1 million Coolmore Coronation Cup earlier, won in spectacular fashion by George Scott’s Bay City Roller, and several in the Derby field were similarly inconvenienced.

Not Christmas Day though. His sire Camelot was an 8/13 shot when winning the race in 2012, the first of that run of ten in 15, with Joseph O’Brien in the saddle. Having beaten French Fifteen at Newmarket, it just needed the St Leger for him to emulate Nijinsky 42 years earlier. Encke has his name on the historical record but nobody believes him the moral winner.

With 14 runners contesting the prizes which went down from £1 million for the winner to £20k for tenth, there wasn’t much room for horses’ being eased, apart that was for the toiling Benvenuto Cellini who passed the post miles behind all bar last home Poker.

Though nothing ever seemed likely to catch the winner, with Maltese Cross, Joseph’s James J Braddock, and Bay Of Brilliance the next three home, I enjoyed seeing Julie Wood’s colours flashing home in fifth. Alderman earned his owner £80k, not bad for a horse rated only 83. Saturday’s 100/1 shot is in for a big hike tomorrow, but the thrill that the Richard Hannon colt gave her a day or so after her birthday is irreplaceable.

Very few owners stick as much to their principles and methods as Julie. While others wait until the yearling sales. Julie always buys foals on her own judgment. This one, a son of Study Of Man, cost 42,000gns at the foal sale in 2023 and has been well worth the wait. Many observers feel the lower limit of 80 for horses qualifying to run in the Derby should be raised. Mrs Wood, Hannon and Alderman are eloquent advocates of why it is fine as it is.

Sixth was another outsider, the Faye Bramey-trained Rebel Rocker, a 66/1 shot, although at 99, he was rated a full 16lb higher than the horse that ran past him in the closing stages. Faye has worked closely for a long time with A P McCoy and she is sure to have more success with Jennifer Dorey’s home bred.

Memories in horse racing are very short and I hadn’t remembered that Christmas Day started the 11/4 favourite for what many regard as the prime Derby trial, the Dante Stakes at York last month. He was comfortably put in his place in third by Item and, for a long time, that Andrew Balding-trained Juddmonte-owned colt was the biggest market threat to Saturday's favourite, winner of the Chester Vase as his trial.

But the ground was clearly a worry for Item as he drifted out to 11/2 before finishing a remote ninth. Christmas Day moved the other way in the market. Priced at 14/1 in the Racing Post forecast in the morning he started at half those odds and with the 25p in the pound deduction bookmakers could (although some did not) apply, that equates to nearer 5/1.

Camelot joins Galileo (four wins) and Australia, with Lambourn last year, as O’Brien Derby winners that then sired winners of the Classic. We always wondered which of the array of new stallions that would fill that area of Galileo’s brilliance. Camelot seems the most likely.

Friday’s Oaks was another O’Brien tour-de-force, but in this case it was son Joseph and the Frankel filly Thundering On that exploded past and away from the Gosdens’ well-supported Legacy Link by almost four lengths.

Until Thundering On appeared on the scene, victory seemed assured for Legacy Link as that Dubawi filly had taken it up from Sugar Island, least fancied of the three Aidan O’Brien runners at 25/1 and another daughter of Dubawi. I watched at close hand as Aidan saddled his three Oaks contenders in the paddock beforehand and had to smile when the first girth tried on the strapping Sugar Island failed to go around her by a good few inches. She is some physical specimen!

She looks one that will take her races going forward even though Thundering On was ten lengths ahead of her by the line. Sadly, my role as chief cheerleader fell flat. The boss’s 100/1 bet on favourite Amelia Earhart never looked like materialising. There’s aways next year, Matt!

If you were a trainer with a Derby (Motivator) and Oaks winner (Sariska) to your name, where would you prefer to have been on Saturday? Michael Bell found himself watching maybe 45 minutes of cricket al Lord’s on an awful day which not only spoilt the Test match for spectators on the worst pitch ever at the Headquarters of cricket, but also ruined hopes of a big attendance on the imaginatively improved Hill at Epsom.

At least Michael’s viewing of the Derby wasn’t interrupted, neither was his winner of a £51k race, £25k to the winner, that Blues And Royals won with a last-stride dip of the head at Musselburgh. Blues And Royals is in triple ownership, but I was delighted that the white colours, dark blue cap of Jonathan Barnett passed the line in front.

That’s three nice wins so far. Could he sneak into the Britannia, probably not, but that sort of win keeps owners happy. At least I had something to cheer on Saturday!

- TS