Saxon Warrior may join exclusive club of Derby winners today

LONDON: Out of luck with Mendelssohn in the Kentucky Derby, Aidan O’Brien heads to Epsom on Saturday harbouring high hopes of Saxon Warrior becoming his sixth Derby winner.

The mount of two-time winning Derby jockey Ryan Moore leapt to the head of the ante-post betting after his silky success in the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket one month ago.O’Brien’s Camelot was the last to achieve the 2,000-Derby double, and only failed by a nostril to go on and add the St Leger and pull off a rare English Triple Crown.

Only three horses — Gainsborough in 1918, Bahram in 1935 and Nijinsky in 1970 — have managed the feat, but O’Brien believes Saxon Warrior has the requisite qualities to be considered a realistic candidate to join this exclusive club.

When O’Brien’s 19-year-old son Donnacha was powering Saxon Warrior to victory in the first leg of the Triple Crown at Newmarket last month his proud father was watching the classic on a laptop on the other side of the Atlantic.

He was at Churchill Downs to supervise Mendelssohn’s ultimately failed mission to become the first European-trained winner of the Kentucky Derby.The Run for the Roses was won by Justify, who has since added the Preakness Stakes and is hot favourite to add the Belmont Stakes to become the 12th horse to complete the US Triple Crown in a century. That only three have managed the English equivalent in the same time period speaks volumes for how difficult it is for a thoroughbred to prove his brilliance over a mile, a mile and a half, and a mile and three quarters.

Referring to Camelot’s near miss O’Brien, speaking to The Racing Post, said: “We hoped a horse might come along so we could try it again, and that’s part of the reason why Saxon Warrior started in the Guineas.

“We could have gone for the Dante but we thought if there was a chance we had a Triple Crown horse this year, it was going to be him. “We’re still alive and kicking after the first round.” If Saxon Warrior were to land English racing’s Holy Grail he would be doing so 48 years after the mighty Nijinsky, who was trained by the late Vincent O’Brien, no relation, from the same Ballydoyle stables.

“The first thing you see when you drive in the gate here is the statue of Nijinsky, so the Triple Crown is something always thought about,” O’Brien said at a recent media day quoted in The Post. “It would be a romantic thing if it did happen, but we have to get the second leg out of the way first. If we are lucky enough to get him to Epsom in good shape that’s all we can do, and hopefully the rest will happen.”

Moore, who missed the Guineas to ride Mendelssohn, resumes his partnership with the son of Japanese sire Deep Impact. The challenges presented by Epsom’s notoriously tricky undulating switchback course have proved beyond many a fancied runner.And if the odds-on favourite is to be denied in English flat racing’s blue riband it could be by Roaring Lion, a horse he beat by a neck last year in a Group One at Doncaster.

After two lowkey efforts he exploded into the Derby picture with an impressive win in the Dante Stakes trial at York.The 5-1 second-favourite is trained by John Gosden who saddled Golden Horn to win in 2015. Another threat is Young Rascal, who runs in the colours of Bernard Kantor, co-founder of Derby sponsors Investec.The winner of a Derby trial at Chester is trained by William Haggas, successful in the Derby with Shaamit in 1996.