With the modern-day racehorse increasingly bred for speed, it is likely that several of tomorrow’s runners at Epsom in the Betfred Derby (4 p.m.) will not truly stay the race distance of a mile and a half. The fact that this year’s contest is going to be run with plenty of cut in the ground means that, unless there is an unusually slow pace, it will take a proper three-year-old staying colt to win this prestigious Grade 1 race.
After his 1-2-3 in the French Derby last weekend, Irish maestro Aidan O’Brien is the likeliest trainer to win tomorrow’s Classic with one of his four runners, but most realistically with either Benvenuto Cellini or Pierre Bonnard.
However, particularly with several bookmakers now paying four places in this 14-runner contest, I would rather be on two horses who look certain to relish this stamina test. The first is BAY OF BRILLIANCE, who at the start of the season was thought of by his trainer Ralph Beckett as a type for the St Leger Stakes (the fifth and final classic of the flat season run over a distance of two and a half furlongs further than the Derby).
My main fancy this weekend is in the Betfred ‘Dash’, a contest for 20 runners
We know Bay of Brilliance stays at least a mile and a half because he was a close second, beaten only a neck, to Maltese Cross in the William Hill Lingfield Derby Trial last month. Whereas that was Maltese Cross’s second run of the season, it was Bay of Brilliance’s seasonal debut and he should come on plenty for that prep run.
