Redemption comes in many forms and for Paddy Beggy it arrived in the historic but pitiless final yards of the Epsom Derby course. From a seemingly impossible position he manoeuvred the big bay outsider Wings Of Eagles into space and swept through for victory. And it was a double redemption because Paddy’s life has come through from even further behind.
At the start of the race Wings Of Eagles’ sole victory in a small race at Killarney saw him start as a 40-1 outsider among an 18-runner field. Turning into the straight he only had two behind him.
As Beggy was loaded into the stalls he had just one winner to his name in Ireland this season, the same number as he had ridden in each of the last two seasons of a career which had begun with a promising success way back in July 2013. Neither situation, to put it mildly, looked anything like promising.
But he believed in the horse and trainer Aidan O’Brien believed in him enough to have given him a job when Paddy came back from a two-year riding stint in Australia with his tail between his legs and a 15- month drugs ban on his passport. Wings Of Eagles had actually run with real promise a couple of times, most recently when second at Chester, but had problems handling the track and looked likely to have a similar problem as he faced up to the rolling camber of the Epsom straight.
Paddy had shown promise and character enough in the long Ballydoyle mornings for Aidan O’Brien to put him up on the Classic filly Hydrangea. Promise about to be fulfilled by a jockey with just the sort of all-round equestrian strengths to keep a horse balanced round Epsom’s testing contours and the cheerful temperament to look on the sunny side.
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“The main thing if you are riding for Aidan O’Brien in colours like these,” he said of the purple and white Derrick Smith silks in which Joseph O’Brien won Derbys on Camelot and Australia in 2012 and 2014, “is you don’t worry about the price because they always have a chance. I was a bit unlucky in running but I probably got there at the right time in the end.
“Two furlongs out I thought I would beat half the field and a furlong down I said that if I get a run I would win. In fairness to this big horse his best furlong was his last, which makes a big, big difference. I don’t get to sit on too many like this beast at the races. I’m going to enjoy it!
“I have dreamt about this big time and to be honest I had probably given up on the big day. Aidan O’Brien, fair play to him, has made it happen.”
This is by many mountains the highest peak of Beggy’s little-sung career and the room filled with the frankness of his delight. In the squillion dollar pantheon of the Flat racing game, comments as happily unguarded are as refreshingly unlikely as Wings Of Eagles’ victory had seemed at the start. But in truth this was a big horse, well ridden to take advantage of a race in which the battle for the lead in Epsom’s demanding closing stages put lead into flying feet and lifted the winner so decisively home.
“I was on a good horse and he looked a million dollars — a lot of the jockeys down at the start said he was the paddock pick. He’s a fine big colt,” Beggy said. “ I knew I had a chance as Aidan always trains each horse for this race — some have form coming into the race, some improve all the time. My lad improved since his last run. It’s brilliant to win this. I can’t really describe it in words; it hasn’t sunk in yet. I’ll go down in history though — I’ve won the Derby. I will be remembered for something at least.”
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The sun shone, the crowds came and only a glumbucket would fail to be lifted by what remains one of Britain’s most atmospheric and engaging events. I first came here for the Coronation Derby in 1953 and for me, for the course, for the horse with the wonderful name, and most of all for the jockey who kicked away his past, it was the very best of days.
