Staff at Epsom may as well begin boxing up the Derby trophy and enquiring about the postage cost to County Tipperary, as Aidan O’Brien won yet another trial for the Classic here, while doubts were expressed about the suitability of the Derby distance for the main British contender. Anthony Van Dyke was an impressive winner of the Lingfield Derby Trial, despite a strong advance suggestion that he would need the run, and he was cut to a best price of 8-1 for the big one next month, having been 14-1 hours earlier.
O’Brien now has the Derby favourite, in Sir Dragonet, as well as three of the next four in the betting. The only leading contender he does not train is Too Darn Hot and, while John Gosden was making encouraging noises about that one’s recovery from a recent injury, he did also suggest that the Derby might be a quarter-mile too far for him.
“We’re surrounded!” said Gosden in response to the emergence of another Ballydoyle star with legitimate Classic aspirations. Asked for his feeling about Too Darn Hot’s ideal distance, Gosden replied: “My instinct says, mile to a mile and a quarter, on everything I’ve seen of the horse. But then his full-sister was second in the Leger last year. The genes say further but we’ll let the horse tell us and Frankie [Dettori] tell us.”
Gosden feels short of time, trying to get Too Darn Hot ready for Thursday’s Dante Stakes. “Every day counts. He took his work well, did two nice canters this morning. All being well, we’ll be at the Dante. It’s not been an ideal situation for the horse, he was ready to go in the Greenham and then we had to have two weeks of just walking. It’s not easy to come back from that but I’ve been very happy with his work. You’d always love another week but I don’t have another week. So we’ll run him there and we’ll know from that race whether we should be looking at a St James’s Palace or we should be looking at a Derby.”
Ludlow 1.55 Cottonvale 2.30 Longhouse Sale 3.05 The Welsh Paddies 3.40 Red Hot Chilly (nb) 4.15 Hatcher 4.50 Palixandre 5.25 Keen On
Plumpton 2.20 Zamperini 2.55 Sauvignon 3.30 Waitinonasunnyday (nap) 4.05 Istimraar 4.40 Melekhov 5.15 Mystical Knight 5.45 Mount Windsor
“Aidan’s got them in great form, hasn’t he?” said Paul Smith, representing the winning team behind Anthony Van Dyck, in the absence of O’Brien. “He’ll come on a lot for the run but delighted with him. There were a few fit ones in there that had run recently and we hadn’t run since last year. No doubt he’ll come on nicely for the run.”
O’Brien, who won both the 1,000 and 2,000 Guineas last weekend, has two notable chances to improve his Derby chance in the next few days. He runs Broome in today’s Derrinstown Derby Trial at Leopardstown, while Japan will take on Too Darn Hot in the Dante.
Japan was O’Brien’s most fancied Derby contender less than a week ago and may yet reclaim that position. However, Circus Maximus, who won the Dee Stakes for the trainer on Thursday, was a notable drifter for the Derby on Betfair yesterday, being traded at over 70-1 at one point. Neither of Coolmore’s representatives here were aware of any problem affecting the horse.
Gosden’s Derby challenge may be in doubt but he has a strong hand in the Oaks, as his Anapurna was a pleasing winner of the Oaks Trial here, her first race on turf.
