Derby hope King faces Dee test

Aidan O’Brien is worried about Gypsy King’s inexperience going into the Dee Stakes at Chester tomorrow.

The Sadler’s Wells colt – co-favourite for the Vodafone Derby with some firms - won his only outing at Leopardstown last October, but starting stalls were not used because of the heavy ground.

Gypsy King duly justified his starting price of 4-9 despite a tardy start and went on to win the 17-runner maiden by a length and a half from Bogside Dancer.

“He’s in good form and his last piece of work was very good. He scoped dirty about six weeks ago which put us back, but he was scoped again on Tuesday and was clean,” O’Brien said.

“My only worry would be about him running in a normal race as he’s only had one race and that was when there were no stalls.

“He’s bred to get a mile and a half and we will have to see how he gets on tomorrow.”

Gypsy King is among five of the nine horses declared for tomorrow’s Group Three contest to hold an engagement in the premier Classic.

Excusez Moi is also entered at Epsom and his trainer Clive Brittain hopes the American-bred colt can put behind him a poor run in the Greenham Stakes in which he was seventh to Indesatchel.

“He disappointed us at Newbury because he ran no sort of race at all,” said the veteran Newmarket trainer.

“He’s worked very well since and we felt that this would be a good race to reintroduce him in. He should learn a lot from running here.

“We don’t know why he ran so badly at Newbury. I don’t think it was the quality of the opposition. He was going okay then he just disappeared altogether - he simply stopped galloping.”

Before his Greenham failure, Excusez Moi had trotted up by nine lengths in a Yarmouth maiden.

The other Derby entrants are the Queen’s colt Forward Move, trained by Richard Hannon, Barry Hills’ Jack The Giant and Sir Michael Stoute’s Mordor, who made a winning debut at Newmarket last month.

Stoute also saddles Zalongo, with the field being completed by the Karl Burke-trained Thunderwing, David Flood’s Im Spartacus and Zohar from Brian Meehan’s stable.