It is five years since the Dubai Duty Free Irish Derby was won by a horse that did not reside at Ballydoyle. The past four winners — Fame And Glory, Frozen Fire, Soldier Of Fortune and Dylan Thomas — have all been trained by Aidan O’Brien. In the past three renewals of the race, O’Brien has remarkably supplied seven of the nine placed horses.
Since O’Brien first won the Irish Derby with Desert King in 1997, 52 of the 136 runners have been trained by him — more than 38%. All week, there has been conjecture over what the master of Ballydoyle would run in this afternoon’s race and what Johnny Murtagh would ride.
When one yard is historically so dominant, the make-up and perceived pecking order of its team are logical starting points for any race analysis. Jan Vermeer was installed as favourite when the ante-post market was formed on Tuesday, but then the money came for Cape Blanco and the speculation that Murtagh would ride his French Derby partner instead of his Epsom Derby partner gathered momentum.
If Jan Vermeer slipped a little below expectations in finishing fourth at Epsom, however, Cape Blanco fell well short in coming 10th in the Prix du Jockey Club at Chantilly the following day.
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Cape Blanco was an impressive winner of the Dante at York, and the conqueror of subsequent Epsom Derby hero Workforce, so it was an unusual move for O’Brien to divert one of his main would-be Epsom Derby prospects to Chantilly.
O’Brien has never won the French Derby, not because he does not have the ammunition but simply because, historically, every Ballydoyle horse who has a realistic chance of winning the Epsom Derby — and some who do not — run at Epsom rather than Chantilly.
Perhaps the re-routing of Cape Blanco represented a slight shift in policy at Ballydoyle, but the feeling then seemed to be that the 10-and-a-half furlongs of the French Derby would suit the horse better than the 12-furlong trip at Epsom. His dam was a sprinter, a half-sister to top sprinter Paris House, and his best sibling a miler.
At first glance, you would have thought that his optimum distance would be somewhere between five and eight furlongs. But he is by Galileo, dual Derby winner and stamina influence, and he did not seem to be stopping at the end of the Dante.
There has obviously been a rethink regarding his stamina because, if he is going to win today, he has to fully stay the 12 furlongs. There is no hiding place over a mile and a half at The Curragh. Also, he has to bounce back from that disappointing run in the Prix du Jockey Club.
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Neither his trainer nor his jockey has been able to put forward an explanation for his poor performance that day. The most likely explanation is that it was just one of those things, too bad to be true, an off-day.
There were five entries from Ballydoyle for this afternoon’s race at the five-day declaration stage, and all five, including Derrinstown winner Midas Touch and Epsom Derby runner-up At First Sight, are set to race. All, except perhaps Bright Horizon, have chances.
In 2007, Kieren Fallon chose to ride Eagle Mountain and Seamie Heffernan won the race on Soldier Of Fortune. In 2008, Murtagh went for Alessandro Volta and again Heffernan won it, on Frozen Fire. It is an issue that is not unique to The Curragh. In the eight years since Galileo won the Epsom Derby as the lone Ballydoyle shooter, when there has been more than one Ballydoyle representative in the Epsom race the stable jockey has chosen the best-placed finisher only twice.
It is astounding that seven of the past 14 Epsom Derby winners, not including Workforce, failed to win again. By contrast, nine of the past 10 Irish Derby winners went on to win at least once more at Group 1 level. Today is probably just the beginning for the Irish Derby winner.