THE absence of St Nicholas Abbey takes some of the intrigue from today’s Investec Epsom Derby but, for all that the Ballydoyle team will miss the horse they believed ‘could walk on water’, the stable dominated the major trials and appears to hold all the aces today.

FRANCE’s Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio won the 2008 Nobel prize in literature yesterday for works characterised by “poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy” and focused on the environment, especially the desert.

French novelist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio won the 2008 Nobel Prize in literature today for his poetic adventure and “sensual ecstasy”.