LEG ON LEDGE IS HIS THING, IRISH DERBY DAY, GREEDY SO-AND-SOS & NOT SO THUNDERING ON.

It has emerged that resting a leg on the ledge in the starting stalls is Benvenuto Cellini's party piece. Yes, it seems he has played the standing on three legs game while waiting for the gates to open ever since he was introduced to starting stalls. 'He has a habit of lifting his hind legs and putting them out. He does it and the lads said he was doing it when they were putting him in at home,' Aidan is quoted in today's Racing Post. So Epsom was not a one-off; so why was this not mentioned at the time and especially during the stewards' enquiry? And it certainly explains why the horse lost very little ground at the start. This revelation just adds another layer to one of the most farcical Epsom Derbys in its long history.

So will Ryan Moore's undiminished faith in Benvenuto Cellini be rewarded at The Curragh today?The question is, I think, more a case of whether it was the three-legged thing that was the cause of the unplaced finish at Epsom or the soft ground? I do not think it was the former as he had every chance of being at least placed as several of the horses that finished in front of him had to pass him in the straight. And only in the final quarter of a mile did Ryan accept that all chance had gone. Also, Aidan is a maker of miracles and Ryan is a true believer, between them they have the ingenuity and derring-do to make walking-on-water perfectly achievable. In the all the ho-ha that went on at Epsom, the dominance of the winner was overlooked, with Benvenuto Cellini erased from the form-book and the victory of Christmas Day ghosted over, as if the judge had announced the winner of the 2026 to be nothing but a passing shadow. It is not unconceivable that Christmas Day might do at The Curragh what he did at Epsom and that is gallop the opposition into submission.

Today's Irish Derby, even with less runners than Epsom, is every bit as intriguing, even if the competitiveness and quality is almost totally down to the breeding policy of Coolmore and Aidan's having no problem running multiple horses. So why should it even be considered reducing the distance to 10-furlongs. If these 12-furlong classics did not exist there would be even less incentive for breeders to use stallions proven at the distance, with the result that 10-furlongs would be the extent of the stamina of thoroughbreds long into the future.

I am not someone who beats about the bush, whatever that phrase actually means. So it has to be said that the connections of Ka Ying Rising, the best or second-best horse on the planet, apparently, are not sportsman but greedy bastards. They, too, do not beat about the bush; they are proud to be all about money and to raise two-fingers the out-moded concept of sportsmanship. They are not coming to Royal Ascot next summer as the prize money is miserly. They would not get out-of-bed for a race worth only £1-million. There is no debate on the matter and no carrot large enough or juicy enough that Ascot might dangle in front of them that could ever persuade them otherwise. I suppose being a big fish in a small pond is the fitting environment for greedy so-and-sos.

Thundering On failed to thunder on in the Pretty Polly at The Curragh yesterday, her run fizzling out as Estrange took her first Group 1 and on ground always considered wrong for her and over a distance two-furlongs short of her required 12-furlongs. After Epsom, I thought Thundering On was the best 3-year-old in training, colt or filly. After the race, my thought was that she needed cut in the ground and 12-furlongs, though Joseph O'Brien has since reported that the filly coughed after the race. So all might not be lost.

As an aside, there is always a reason why a race is run on the date in the calendar tha has become traditional. But why is the Pretty Polly the highlight of the middle-day of the Irish Derby meeting and not the Irish Oaks? Why can't the Pretty Polly be run on the day that is presently set aside for the Irish Oaks?