Frankie Dettori said on Sunday that his Derby victory on Golden Horn had given him more pleasure than any winner in his career, including his first success in the Classic in 2007 and the final leg of his “magnificent seven” at Ascot in 1996.
“I told my dad yesterday after the race that in my 28 years of riding that was my most thrilling moment, even more so than Ascot,” Dettori said. “Maybe because I’m older and realised how important it was, or the fact that I am running out of years. It was really special.
“The Derby is the best race in the world and everybody wants to win it. This time I enjoyed it more. As you get older, you appreciate the moment and how difficult it is to win the race.
“It was quite emotional. The win has still not sunk in. The whole build up and anticipation, it’s a big deal. Only when I woke up this morning with the kids and the dogs in bed did I pinch myself that I had won the Derby and it was not a dream.”
Golden Horn is expected to have his next race over 10 furlongs in the Coral-Eclipse Stakes at Sandown on 4 July.
“The Eclipse in July looks like the direction we’ll go and then possibly on to York for the Juddmonte [International Stakes on 19 August],” John Gosden, Golden Horn’s trainer, said on Sunday.
“He’s come out of the race well and it is fair to say the Eclipse is uppermost in my mind. For Jack Hobbs [the runner-up in the Derby on Saturday], he’ll run in the Irish Derby and then we’ll give him a holiday as he’s a big, rangy horse that will make a nice four- and five-year-old. As you could see in his frame yesterday, he’s not yet fully furnished.”
American Pharoah, who became the first horse for 37 years to complete America’s Triple Crown on Saturday, has several possible targets for his next start. Ahmed Zayat, the colt’s breeder and owner, said on Sunday that he will leave it to Bob Baffert, the horse’s trainer, to chart a course for the three-year-old, with the Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park on 2 August and the Travers Stakes at Saratoga on 29 August among the options.
David Pipe secured a rare success for a British-trained horse in France’s equivalent of the Champion Hurdle when Un Temps Pour Tout and James Reveley made all the running in the Grande Course de Haies d’Auteuil in Paris on Sunday.
The first three places were a clean sweep for overseas stables with Willie Mullins’s Thousand Stars finishing second for Katie Walsh and Zarkandar, trained by Paul Nicholls and ridden by Sam Twiston-Davies, back in third.
William Buick, who rode Jack Hobbs in the Derby, has been booked to ride California Chrome, last season’s Kentucky Derby winner, in the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot on 17 June.
“They did want Frankie,” Rae Guest, who is currently stabling California Chrome in Newmarket, said on Sunday, “but he’s going to ride Western Hymn. They wanted one of the good English or European jockeys and William beat them in Dubai [when Prince Bishop beat California Chrome in the Dubai World Cup] so they know him and he’s available.”
