Golden Horn out to Eclipse older rivals
The Cape Cross colt looked every inch an Epsom contender when running out a brilliant winner of the Dante Stakes at York on his penultimate start and justified his place as Derby favourite with a brilliant display on the Downs in the hands of Frankie Dettori.
With his stable companion and York and Epsom runner-up Jack Hobbs claiming Classic glory himself in last weekend’s Irish Derby, Golden Horn is unsurprisingly a long odds-on favourite to add another Group One prize to his CV in this weekend’s feature event.
However, Gosden feels his charge has more on his plate than the prices suggest.
He said: “I have a lot of respect for The Grey Gatsby, looking at his form from last year and the form of his last race, finishing second in the Prince of Wales’s (Stakes).
“Then you have the horse that finished third in the Queen Anne (Cougar Mountain), which is the best form around over a mile, so these are top older horses we’re taking on.
“I think the odds are a little bit unusual and I don’t think they’re representative of the chances the other horses have.
“I’ve no illusions about it. It’s a mile and a quarter on a track that can favour front-runners and against older horses. I’ve bags of respect for those horses and nothing is a given.”
Despite his caution, the Clarehaven handler admits Golden Horn has done everything right at home since his Epsom heroics.
“We talked at Epsom about wanting to go to Sandown and I’ve been happy with his work,” said Gosden.
“He has a good constitution – his favourite two occupations are eating and sleeping. There’s no harm in that.
“He’s quite relaxed and quite lazy sometimes in his work. He’s lazy in his races sometimes as well, but he’s a grand horse.”
Golden Horn heads to Sandown having won each of his previous starts, but the pressure of protecting that unbeaten record is not something that concerns Gosden.
He said: “I don’t let it (unbeaten record) bother me. Any horse can get beaten, it happened to Nijinsky, Kingman in the Guineas. I’m never going to let that worry me.
“If the horse’s ability is there and they’re in good form and come out of their races well, that matters to a trainer probably more than anything else.”
Golden Horn carries the colours of owner-breeder Anthony Oppenheimer, who was moved to tears in the winner’s enclosure at Epsom.
He is looking forward to his colt’s latest challenge, but also describes the betting as “mad”.
“I believe he is developing and I believe he’s going extremely well,” Oppenheimer told At The Races.
“I think it’s going to be a fantastic race. When you get only four or five runners, then it’s completely tactical, but it could be one of the most exciting races you’ll see all year.
“We’ll just have to wait and see. In a very slowly-run race, it plays into the hands of non-stayers and anybody can come from behind much easier than in a 10 or 12-horse race.
“You could get on the finishing line, with three or four horses arriving at the same time.
