ITV has joined Britain’s bookmakers in celebration after the 40-1 success of Wings Of Eagles in the Investec Derby at Epsom. Viewing figures for the channel’s coverage of the Classic showed clear improvement on those recorded by Channel 4 last year.
ITV Racing’s coverage drew a peak audience of 1.7m viewers for the race at 4.30pm on Saturday, versus a peak of 1.374m for Channel 4’s broadcast in 2016. ITV’s peak figure was also better than any of those recorded by C4 during its four-year contract to cover the race between 2013 and 2016 – but well below the 3.3m peak achieved by BBC Sport in the final year of its contract in 2012.
The average audience for ITV’s coverage was 820,000, an increase of around 30% on the figure of 628,000 in 2016, while ITV’s audience share of 11.3% was also the highest for the Classic since 2012.
This year’s Derby was one of the most open races for many years and Wings Of Eagles was the biggest outsider to win since the 1970s and the first winner at double-figure odds since 1998.
The colt’s unexpected success under the little-known jockey Padraig Beggy, allied to the improved viewing figures for the race, also suggest that racing’s finances should receive an unexpected boost from the outcome, since bookmakers’ contributions to the sport via a reformed Levy system are linked to their gross profit.
The Derby is normally the third-biggest betting race of the year, after the Grand National and Cheltenham Gold Cup, and a large field in which Cracksman, with Frankie Dettori aboard, started favourite at 7-2 is likely to have produced strong turnover.
Cracksman, who was having only the third start of his career, ran in snatches before staying on in the final quarter-mile to finish third behind Wings Of Eagles and Cliffs Of Moher, the apparent first string in Aidan O’Brien’s six runners in the race.
O’Brien said on Sunday that the first two horses home could go their separate ways for their next starts, with Wings Of Eagles a possible runner in the Irish Derby at The Curragh on 1 July while Cliffs Of Moher drops back to a mile-and-a-quarter in the Eclipse Stakes at Sandown Park a week later.
“They seem to be fine,” O’Brien said. “Obviously they haven’t done much today but they seem to be fine so far.
“We might have a look at the Irish Derby with Wings Of Eagles and it’s possible we might have a look at the Eclipse with Cliffs Of Moher, but we’re not sure yet. It will be a week or 10 days before we decide anything but that’s what we are thinking at the moment.”
Wings Of Eagles was O’Brien’s sixth Derby winner at Epsom but the trainer has yet to win the French equivalent at Chantilly and his blank will extend for at least another 12 months after his three runners in Sunday’s renewal of the Prix du Jockey Club finished unplaced behind the favourite, Brametot.
Brametot took the French 2,000 Guineas at Deauville last month and was a 7-4 chance to follow up on Sunday but his prospects did not look good in the early stages of the race as Cristian Demuro sat at the back of the field after a slow start.
Demuro’s mount made some progress from the rear as the race developed but still had plenty of ground to make up as the 12 runners turned for home. The colt did not hit the front until the final stride, beating André Fabre’s Waldgeist by a short head with Recoletos in third. Bay Of Poets, from Charlie Appleby’s yard in Newmarket, fared best of the three British-trained runners in seventh, while William Haggas’s Rivet, last year’s Racing Post Trophy winner, was eighth.
No winner of the French Derby has gone on to win the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in October since the distance of the Classic was reduced to 10½ furlongs in 2005. Brametot is top-priced at 10-1 to become the first to do so, in a market headed by Almanzor, last year’s French Derby winner, at 6-1.
‘Sprint king’ David ‘Dandy’ Nicholls dies aged 61
David ‘Dandy’ Nicholls, the trainer whose exploits with sprinters over the last quarter of a century had earned him the nickname “the sprint king”, has died at the age of 61. He saddled six Group One winners in his career, including Continent in the July Cup at Newmarket in 2002 and Ya Malak – with his wife Alex in the saddle – in the 1997 Nunthorpe Stakes at York, and won almost all the Flat season’s major sprint handicaps at least once.
Nicholls began his racing career as a jockey, recording more than 400 winners and forming a brilliant partnership with Soba, a filly who won 11 races in 1982 including the Stewards’ Cup at Goodwood.
Retiring from the saddle and turning his attention to training in 1992, Nicholls soon established a reputation for finding improvement in other trainers’ cast-offs, and apparently exposed sprinters in particular.
Ya Malak was a prime example of Nicholls’s ability to spot a bargain. The gelding was bought as a five-year-old having shown occasional glimpses of serious ability for Pip Payne and Ian Balding – and dead-heated for the Group One Nunthorpe less than a year later, making his rider the first woman to win a race at the highest level in Britain.
Nicholls saddled Bahamian Pirate to win the same race in 2004, while Continent, originally trained for Prince Khalid Abdullah’s Juddmonte operation in France, took the Ayr Gold Cup in 2001 and then two Group One events the following season after being bought by Nicholls for 40,000 guineas. Continent was eventually retired at the age of 11 with career earnings of almost £450,000.
In all, Nicholls took the Ayr Gold Cup six times, and the Stewards’ Cup on three occasions. Redford, a useful horse on a 15-race losing streak, took the Ayr handicap in impressive style barely a month after joining the Nicholls stable, while Regal Parade, a 425,000gns yearling, joined the yard for 16,000gns before winning the Ayr Gold Cup, a handicap at Royal Ascot and the Group 1 Haydock Sprint Cup.
Nicholls announced in March that he was closing his training operation due to financial problems. He was also due to stand trial in August on two charges of sexual assault, relating to incidents at his yard near Thirsk. He denied the charges.
Adrian Nicholls, the trainer’s son and former stable jockey, said on Sunday that his father “passed away in his sleep at home this morning. He’d been battling a few problems of late.
“Everybody knows in racing what he did. He was a very good jockey and an even better trainer and probably an even better dad. His record speaks for itself. There are a few other people snapping at his heels to take the ‘sprint king’ title, but they’ll be doing well to do what he did.”
Greg Wood’s tips for Monday
Leicester
2.20 Porchy Party 2.50 Bourbonisto 3.20 Meteor Light (nb) 3.50 Verity 4.20 Mesbaar 4.55 Present Tense 5.25 Taskeen 6.00 Magic Moments
Thirsk
2.00 Mabo 2.30 Jedi Master 3.00 Judicious 3.30 Compton Park 4.00 Tadaawol 4.35 Gaval 5.05 Lyric Harmony 5.35 Navajo Thunder
Newton Abbot
2.10 Fuhgeddaboudit 2.40 Alcala 3.10 Rossetti 3.40 Mahlers Star 4.10 Passmore 4.45 Deauville Dancer 5.15 Lake Chapala
Ayr
5.55 Born To Be Alive 6.25 Love Oasis 6.55 Mo Henry 7.25 The McGregornator 7.55 SS Vega 8.25 Fieldsman (nap) 8.55 Buzz Boy
Windsor
5.40 Choice Encounter 6.10 Madame Bounty 6.40 Steaming 7.10 West Drive 7.40 Ice Age 8.10 Open Wide 8.40 Arsenio Lupin
