This year, more than any other year, it has become important to anticipate Aidan O’Brien’s running plans for the Derby. The master of Ballydoyle has four of the top six in the betting plus other potential runners, only he’s considering sending a couple of them to the French Derby instead. He has even spoken of the possibility of Sir Dragonet, who would start favourite for Epsom if he ran there, turning up at Chantilly. A significant edge awaits any punter who can work out the plans in advance although he has been speaking this morning at the ‘Breakfast With The Stars’ press conference.
So, in an effort to climb inside Aidan’s head and work out his motivation, I had a look through his record in the French Derby. My tentative thesis was that the horses he’s run there over the years have not proved to be of any great consequence in the long run, reflecting the reality that it’s not a priority for him, and therefore he’d be unlikely to send such a promising young animal as Sir Dragonet.
Right enough, some forgettable beasts have represented Aidan at Chantilly. Do you remember Temple Of Artemis? Falstaff? Chinese Whisper? Hopefully you do remember Westphalia, who won a Champagne Stakes, but possibly it escaped your notice that he ended up running in Hong Kong under the name Super Pistachio.
Aidan is 0/36 over 21 years in the French Derby, which I think goes some way towards proving that he does not send his best prospects across La Manche in early June. There are no French Derby winners standing at Coolmore, whereas there are five Epsom heroes there, underlining which race matters more to O’Brien’s employers.
Undermining this theory somewhat is the fact that O’Brien has run both Highland Reel and Cape Blanco in recent French Derbys. Both eventually proved to be miles better than anything he ran at Epsom in those same years. Admittedly, Highland Reel was coming off a flop in the French Guineas, so it wasn’t clear that he was the type to go on and win the Hong Kong Vase twice. But Cape Blanco had just dotted up in the Dante, beating the eventual Derby winner.
Could it be that Aidan is occasionally sending animals of real talent to France because he’s got a bit fed up with always being in the ‘Jockey Club’ and never winning it? Epsom and The Curragh bow before him but Chantilly still holds out, and perhaps that has become vexing. It will be fascinating to see what he decides to send across the Channel given his recent comments.
Tuesday’s best bets
It turns out that Alkaraama is rather more popular than I anticipated, so we’ll draw a veil, please, over the fact that I’ve napped a 1-2 shot. I reckon Jason Watson could be in for a good time on the rest of the Wolverhampton card, notably with Junior Rip (3.25), quickly hammered in from 4-1 to 9-4 when betting began on this three-year-old handicap.
He showed modest ability in three spins round here as a juvenile and again, in unfavourable circumstances, on Haydock soft last month, his handicap debut. Now he steps up to the distance suggested by his breeding and it’s a good time to be interested in Roger Charlton’s handicappers.
More speculatively, Watson is also aboard Miss Liberty Belle (2.20) for William Jarvis in another three-year-old handicap earlier. Her pedigree is all speed and she was quick from the stalls at Salisbury this month, showing plenty of pace and a lot of freshness until burning out after five furlongs.
Here, she goes from trap three off a fairish mark and could well last the six furlongs if she’s a bit straighter and more settled. She’s 20-1 as I type.
At the end of Brighton’s card, there’s 9-2 about Confrerie (5.15), who beat 15 rivals at this track in October and again ran well, in a better race than this, last month. Cieren Fallon takes off a valuable 7lb and they have a chance to turn over Imperial Act, favourite after an all-weather success last time.