the derby. a tenth and a fourth.

​He came, he saw, he conquered. Yet again. And he was happy. While the rest of us shook our heads and bowed in the light of his genius. Aidan O’Brien is king, the new king of Epsom. Lester Piggott’s rein is finally over. All hail the Epsom king! A Tenth Derby winner. One better than his predecessor and former crown wearer. For Moore it was his fourth. He deserves more.
It makes one wonder how Aidan got things so terrible wrong at Newmarket. He blames the momentary blip in the stalls for the calamity; that City of Troy’s heartrate sky rocketed as the gates opened, resulting in the horse running out of energy at half-way. Aidan’s reasoning may have validity. But greater validity can be accrued from the ‘he was too fresh’ part of the analysis and ‘I treated him too much like a god.’ Yet I believe, and I say this with humility and not as criticism as we all get things wrong on occasion, at Newmarket, City of Troy was not fit enough to do himself justice. The stone left unturned was the most obvious stone of all, fitness.
Whether it was complacency, over-confidence or simply Aidan’s new trick of not over-doing his horses early on so they last out the long season, only Aidan will know. But you can be sure that City of Troy was trained to the 100% zenith in the run-up to Epsom. On the racecourse City of Troy may in future treat the opposition as if they are mere serfs but on the gallops at home he will never get the god-like, we are not worthy to live in your shadow’, treatment again. Making mistakes is data-gathering and as long as that mistake is not made twice, only good can ever come from it. I doubt if Aidan has repeated a mistake too many times in his life.
I will say this about the 2024 Derby. The race won by team tactics as much as anything else. Euphoric was run not so much as a pacemaker but to set a strong enough gallop to string out the field to make Ryan’s job easier in getting an unmolested run, which he did with the confidence associated with one of the greatest jockeys of all time. He got a golden passage up the rail and won with the zest of a true champion. Ryan Moore’s hardest job was pulling up as City of Troy gave the impression he wanted to do a lap of honour. It would have been interesting how long it might have taken to persuade City of Troy to stop racing if the fence at the end of the course was not there to put a stop to such exuberance. 
Though I doubt it would have made any difference to the result, though it might have made Ryan’s job in pulling up a lot more difficult, is if Rab Havlin had kicked for home instead of taking a pull at the very moment Ryan gave his mount the office to go win the race. We will only know how good City of Troy is if Ambiente Friendly wins the Irish Derby, if they go there next.
That is the thing with these ‘great’ horses, they need horses within a pound or two of themselves to truly judge where they lie in the pantheon of the ‘great ones.’ It is why I continue to rank Brigadier Gerard above Frankel as in beating Mill Reef the Brigadier beat a better horse than Frankel ever achieved. It is why, I believe, going next to America with City of Troy, especially if they choose the Bleeders Cup over the Arc, will dent the ‘lads’ aspirations and expectations of greatness for him. For true sportsman, which the Ballydoyle lads undoubtedly are, it will be a shame if they put the breeding shed before the racecourse with, perhaps, their first true champion, a horse of the calibre of Brigadier Gerard and Frankel, I have little doubt.
Finally, why is it that the connections of the fancied beaten horses in the Derby immediately tie themselves to ‘he didn’t stay, he will be better at a shorter trip’ mentality. Dancing Gemini was given an impossible task coming from so far back, especially as at Epsom they have to climb a stamina-sapping hill before they get racing, did not get a clear passage in the straight and was bumped late on. The bird had flown long before Dancing Gemini got into full flight himself. Yes, go back a couple of furlongs next time but do not cross-off the possibility of returning to 12-furlongs at some point this season. Oh, and for those who now crow with hindsight that Roger Teal should have waited for the French Derby – the ground is very soft at Chantilly and in that ground stamina might also have proved an issue.
The biggest threat to the reputation of the Epsom Derby in the years to come is breeders breeding almost exclusively for speed and foregoing the bedrock of thoroughbred breeding that is stamina. On the flat, all the great horses have been 10-furlong plus horses, with the majority of those 12-furlong plus horses. Breeders, I contend, are to blame for the lessening of the prestige of the Epsom Derby.