Several months before the Derby of 1853, the racehorse owner John Bowes backed his colt West Australian to win £40,000, equivalent to around £4.5m today. The only Victorian bookmaker who could lay such a bet was William “Leviathan” Davies, whose nickname derived from the monstrous sums he was willing both to accept and pay out. And when West Australian won, Davies lived up to his reputation, and paid Bowes his winnings in cash, in front of the packed enclosures at Epsom.
More than a century and a half later, and as another huge crowd gathers on the Surrey Downs on Saturday, the story of Bowes and his huge win on West Australian is a reminder of the fortunes that have been gambled, won and lost on the Derby since its earliest days. Never mind the “modern equivalent”. Even now, £40,000 is still significantly more than the average annual salary.
But hard cash has never been the only currency in play at Epsom. Breeders have invested lifetimes attempting to create a thoroughbred with the perfect blend of speed, stamina, balance and courage to win a Derby. Owners have staked ego and reputation, wealth and inheritance to pursue the dream of a Derby winner, with no guarantee of success. Just ask Sheikh Mohammed of Dubai, who has spent billions on bloodstock over four decades and has yet to see his colours cross the line in front.
It is that lack of any guarantee that has lain at the heart of the Derby’s appeal for generations. It takes luck as well as money to come up with the winner, whether you are billionaire or a punter sticking on a pound each-way. And for a breeder or owner who has spent a lifetime in the sport, there is only one thing better than a Derby winner, and that is a Derby winner with a chance to win the Triple Crown.
Which, in a way, brings us back to West Australian as much as it does to Saxon Warrior, the hot favourite to win the 239th Derby. Bowes’s colt had already won the 2,000 Guineas when he took the Derby, and three months later he became the first horse to add the St Leger to the first two colts’ Classics.
Eleven more colts have completed the Triple Crown at Newmarket, Epsom and Doncaster since then, but none since Nijinsky in 1970 – and that very much turns the attention to Saxon Warrior.
Nijinsky, like Saxon Warrior, was trained at the famous Ballydoyle complex in County Tipperary, by the late, and fabled, Vincent O’Brien. There is a statue of Nijinsky on one side of the stable’s main gate, and space on the other to commemorate a Triple Crown-winning successor. If Saxon Warrior triumphs on Saturday, he will be one race away from joining Nijinsky, in the record books and also in bronze.
It is hard to overstate what that would mean to John Magnier, the 70-year-old driving force behind the Coolmore Stud bloodstock and breeding operation which supplies Ballydoyle with its racehorses and then stands its champions as stallions.
Magnier, Vincent O’Brien’s son-in-law, was at the stable in 1970 when Nijinsky and Lester Piggott completed the Triple Crown in style and now, nearly half a century later, he could be part of the story of another.
As Aidan O’Brien pointed out a few weeks ago, all of “the lads” – as he famously refers to the three principal members of the syndicate – can remember Nijinsky. Michael Tabor and Derrick Smith were both bookmakers in the past, Tabor as the owner of a 120-shop chain and Smith as the trading director at Ladbrokes. Their investment in bloodstock and dedication to winning the Derby above all has been instrumental in maintaining the Classic’s status in recent decades. It would complete the work of a lifetime to add a Triple Crown winner as well.
It would wrap up some unfinished business as well. It is only six years since O’Brien’s Camelot became the first horse since Nijinsky to line up at Doncaster with the Triple Crown on the line.
Two previous winners of both the Guineas and Derby – Nashwan in 1989 and Sea The Stars in 2009 – had been steered away from the Leger by owners who did not see the Triple Crown as a worthwhile achievement. But the lads certainly did, and the disappointment was immense when Camelot finished second, three-quarters of a length behind Encke.
The following spring, Encke was one of more than two dozen horses at Mahmood al-Zarooni’s high-profile stable in Newmarket to test positive for steroids as the trainer’s career imploded in the biggest doping scandal British racing has seen.
Encke tested negative after the Leger, but the whole point of doping horses with steroids is that it can improve their form long after the drug itself is out of their system. Zarooni was banned from racing for eight years, but the stain of doubt that he left on the record books can never be entirely erased.
In public, the insistence is that Camelot’s failure is seen as just one of things. It wasn’t their day at Doncaster. In private, who knows? But they are only human, and Zarooni’s subsequent exposure as a cheat must touch a nerve somewhere.
Even before his win in the 2,000 Guineas, the lads identified Saxon Warrior as a potential Triple Crown horse, and he came through the first test with ease while also seeming sure to improve for an extra half-mile.
Saxon Warrior is a worthy favourite, with the best form going into the Derby and Ryan Moore, the best jockey, holding the reins. Like Bowes back in 1853, the lads have a great deal riding on this afternoon’s Derby, but it is about more, much more, than just money.
