Colm Greaves on the Epsom Derby: Box clever with Braddock

CLASSIC CONTENDERS: James J Braddock gets up late to thwart Pierre Bonnard in the Group 3 Derby Trial Stakes at Leopardstown last month. The classy pair may fight out the finish at Epsom today. Picture: Healy Racing

FOR a simple horse race, the Epsom Derby has morphed into a carnival of complicated controversy in recent years.

It wasn’t too long ago when Derby Day was a ride to the course on an open-topped bus on a Wednesday afternoon in early June, lively hours passed on the infield the help of a gallon of warm ale and a pound each-way on Lester’s nag in the big one before dozing your way happily back to Hackney while the sun went down.

Nowadays, things are a lot noisier. 

Every horse, jockey, trainer and all other minutiae of raceday are pedantically scrutinised on digital media for months in advance and then parsed into millions of instant opinions, lots of them cynical, many of them critical.

Opinions on high pricing and low attendances. 

On the perpetually anxious appeasement of the anti-racing lobby in Britain which causes over-cautious watering of the track. 

Opinions on the ethics of synchronised pace-making ruining the chances of half the field. 

And then, obviously, the old reliable chestnut; that this year is the poorest quality field in the history of the race, almost Benny The Dip 1997 bad.

Attendance, in truth, is a real problem and the Epsom executive team are hoping for a serious reversal of fortune. Last year 22,000 people paid in to witness the world’s most iconic flat race. 

That’s over 6,000 fewer than the crowd that showed up for Ladies’ Day at the Listowel Harvest Festival in September. 

New initiatives have been implemented. On-course entertainment has been enhanced and the Royal family have been persuaded to put in an appearance which always adds to the depth of public engagement with British cultural events. 

The installation of ‘bleacher’ seating on the inner track for the last furlong is a fine idea and certain to improve the visual framing of the race’s climactic happenings. There are expectations that the 2025 crowd could be doubled on Saturday.

Soft, loose ground is rarely a positive visual framing for the Epsom Derby but the clerk of the course, Andrew Cooper, is notoriously fond of his hose pipe.

Carlow trainer Shark Hanlon, a vocal opponent of the overuse of the watering can at summer fixtures got a smack on the wrist and a €250 fine at Listowel last week for angrily expressing his annoyance that the ground had been softened in advance of racing. 

Cooper must have been counting his blessings that Shark doesn’t have a runner, but nature seems to have spared him a tricky decision.

Heavy rain arrived to change the going from good-firm to good-soft on Tuesday morning and he should be able assure the opponents of horse racing that the going is perfectly safe and if anything nasty happens an animal in the race that it will because of an act of God and because not a decision by Cooper.

The probable ease in the ground will play heavily into the chosen race tactics employed this afternoon and every time that ‘pacemaking’ is mentioned in regard to horse racing the suffix ‘Ballydoyle’ is soon added.

Somebody once said that if you think you have five horses capable of winning the Derby then you probably don’t even have one but Aidan O’Brien has long disproved this old adage.

His latest demonstration on the advantages of a co-ordinated teamwork came in the French equivalent at Chantilly last Sunday when his runners filled the first three places in a masterclass of precision race planning.

O’Brien often comes mob-handed to the Derby and this policy clearly works as he’s won it 10 times already including victories with outsiders such as Serpentine (25-1) and Wings Of Eagles (40-1). 

It’s a strategy that drives his English counterparts batty, from both jealousy of his strength in depth or a suspicion that his horses are positioned in the race to cause their own runner’s maximum disadvantage. 

He sends four challengers to Epsom on Saturday, two with serious chances and another couple who are likely to run prominently before fading back through the field when the race heats up after the turn past Tattenham Corner. 

It will be another act of God if they cause traffic problems for the other runners, So, will this simple horse race produce a true champion for the generations? 

This is a question that will remain rhetorical until later in the season when the subsequent progression of the winner can be accurately measured. But it looks like an interesting line-up and will hopefully it shape up to be a deep race when all the dust settles.

With easier going likely three horses jump out as the stronger candidates. Pierre Bonnard is the only winner of a Group 1 in the field and that came at Saint-Cloud on ground described as ‘very soft’ which in France is a polite way to describe quicksand. 

He’s been high on O’Brien’s ‘serious horse’ list since the beginning of the year and is expected to improve on his narrow defeat at Leopardstown last month.

Pierre was beaten a short head that day by James J Braddock, who is named after an American professional boxer who pulled off one of the sports biggest surprises when he beat the reigning heavyweight champion Max Baer in 1935. 

Co-owned by popular Irish breeder and racing journalist Kevin Blake, James won a 20-runner maiden at the Curragh by six lengths on heavy last autumn.

Bay Of Brilliance could be the best of the home team having won both on soft and good-to-soft last term and showed he had trained on when a narrow second to Maltese Cross in the Lingfield Derby Trial.

Item and the favourite Benvenuto Cellini look like top of the ground types and may need to wait for drier times.

Verdict: 1: James J Braddock; 2: Pierre Bonnard; 3: Bay of Brilliance.