Graham Dench casts his eye over the three-year-olds currently taking high rank in calculations for the Betfred-sponsored Derby, Europe’s most prestigious Classic at Epsom on Saturday June 7
Seven of the last eight winners of the Epsom Derby have been trained by either Aidan O’Brien or Charlie Appleby, so it is little wonder that colts from those two stables once again dominate ante-post markets for the Betfred-sponsored Classic on June 7.
O’Brien, who won his tenth Derby with City Of Troy 12 months ago, looks to hold an especially strong hand at this early stage. He has the clear favourite once again in The Lion In Winter among a host of potential candidates, while Appleby has a likely type in Ruling Court, his sole representative at the initial entry stage, and plenty more promising sorts. Godolphin have tended to add more horses at later entry stages.
Joseph O’Brien, a dual Derby winner as a rider, has a solid contender in Tennessee Stud, while Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe-winning trainer Ralph Beckett has no fewer than 12 entries, among whom the trio included in this list all look live outsiders.
1. THE LION IN WINTER trained by Aidan O’Brien (Ire)
b c Sea The Stars - What A Home (Lope De Vega)
Odds generally available: 5-1 favourite
The Lion In Winter was already around a 5-1 favourite for the Derby when he was ruled out of Newmarket’s Dewhurst Stakes with a stone bruise, and you can still get the same sort of odds some four months later.
We’ll never know for sure how he would have fared there in a race Aidan O’Brien had won for an eighth time 12 months earlier with subsequent Derby winner City Of Troy, but we could draw our own conclusions when the stable’s previously unconsidered stablemate Expanded got to within a neck of Godolphin’s runaway Middle Park winner Shadow Of Light in a messy race.
The Lion In Winter had impressed in a maiden at The Curragh in July on his debut, and success in York’s Acomb Stakes a month later saw him propelled to the head of this year’s Classic markets. The Acomb might only be a G3 event, but the 2024 renewal punched well above its weight, runner-up Wimbledon Hawkeye going on to win the Royal Lodge, while fourth-placed The Waco Kid landed the Tattersalls Stakes. What is more The Lion In Winter won it well, under a forceful front-running ride.
We didn’t see The Lion In Winter again, and plans for his reappearance are reportedly fluid, but O’Brien revealed in late January that while he could go for the Guineas he is looking more of a Derby type and so might start off in a trial.
He currently looks very much the stable’s number one hope for Epsom, where O’Brien has been successful in four of the last six years and a record ten times in all.
2. TWAIN Aidan O’Brien (Ire)
b c Wootton Bassett - Wading (Montjeu)
Odds: 20-1
The unbeaten Twain will probably be trained for the 2000 Guineas first, but he is a fascinating prospect and very much in the ‘could be anything’ box.
While he clearly wasn’t ‘expected’ when a 28-1 winner of a soft-ground seven-furlong maiden on debut at Leopardstown in October, he made short work of his 12 rivals and came home six lengths clear.
We didn’t have to wait long for confirmation that he’s an exciting prospect, for just eight days later he lined up for the G1 Criterium International at Saint-Cloud on even more testing ground, having been supplemented, and he scored again, by a length and a quarter from stablemate Mount Kilimanjaro. It wasn’t a strong race for its G1 status, with the previously unbeaten hotpot Maranoa Charlie failing to run his race, but he won convincingly, despite a tendency to hang left.
While it’s true that the best of his siblings did their winning at distances short of a mile and a half, the dam is a sister to the Irish Oaks winner Bracelet and it’s the family of Galileo and Sea The Stars, so he ought to have a good chance of staying at Epsom. Whether he’ll be as effective on faster ground is impossible to say at this stage.
3. STANHOPE GARDENS Ralph Beckett (GB)
ch c Ghaiyyath - Pure Art (Dutch Art)
Odds: 33-1
It must have come as a very pleasant surprise to connections when Stanhope Gardens showed so much at two, because he’s a colt who has ‘middle-distance three-year-old’ written all over him.
An eye-catching third to Ruling Court in a maiden at Sandown first time out, he had no trouble landing the odds in a similar race at Beverley next time and then made Aidan O’Brien-trained Delacroix pull out all of the stops in the G3 Autumn Stakes at Newmarket.
The pair had a terrific battle through the final furlong there, leaving some promising rivals well behind, and it was only close home that Stanhope Gardens gave best to a rival who’d had the benefit of the rail to race against throughout.
Stanhope Gardens is crying out for further and will presumably have his Derby credentials tested in one of the traditional trials. Jockey Rossa Ryan has nominated him as one of his best prospects for 2025 and you can see why.
4. RULING COURT Charlie Appleby (GB)
b c Justify - Inchargeofme (High Chaparral)
Odds: 14-1
Ruling Court was beaten just over two lengths into third by The Lion In Winter when the pair met in York’s Acomb Stakes, but it remains to be seen how relevant that will be if the pair meet again over an additional five furlongs at Epsom in June. For the record, they were both making only their second starts there after impressing first time out – at Sandown, in Ruling Court’s case – and neither was seen again.
Dual Derby winner Charlie Appleby will have two more opportunities to add another contender or two to this year’s race, but Ruling Court was his sole representative at the initial entry stage in February.
Unlike most in this list, we’ve already had a good look at him this year in the Jumeirah 2000 Guineas at Meydan on March 1, and while his opponents there were by no means top drawer there’s no denying he blew them away in devastating fashion.
No firm plan was forthcoming afterwards, but Appleby hinted that a step up in trip for York’s Dante Stakes might be more likely than sticking at a mile in the 2000 Guineas, in which the stable already has a strong candidate in Shadow Of Light. Should he prevail at York, the Derby would be the obvious next step.
A 2.3m Euro breeze-up purchase from Arqana Sales last May, Ruling Court is by US Triple Crown winner Justify, sire of last year’s Derby winner City Of Troy, out of a US Graded stakes-placed turf winner at around a mile. While ten furlongs ought to be no problem, there is no guaranteeing he will stay a mile and a half, as with most American breds.
5. HOTAZHELL Jessica Harrington (IRE)
b c Too Darn Hot - Azenzar (Danehill Dancer)
Odds: 33-1
Hotazhell certainly won’t be lacking for experience if he makes it to Epsom in June, for Jessica Harrington, who describes him as a “feisty” individual who loves to look his rivals in the eye, ran him no fewer than six times at two.
To his credit, he went from strength to strength, winning a maiden, a G3 and a G2 before just edging the Aidan O’Brien-trained favourite Delacroix out of Doncaster’s G1 Futurity Trophy after a sustained battle that saw the pair pull over four lengths clear.
The Futurity has a solid record as a proving ground for future Derby contenders, and Auguste Rodin was its fifth winner since the turn of the century to go on to success at Epsom two summers ago. Hotazhell was a solid, if unspectacular winner of the race, and there’s no reason he won’t be just as good at three.
Incidentally, the stable has at least one more likely Classic colt this year in Green Impact, a Wootton Bassett colt who has also had the measure of Delacroix not once, but twice. There might not be too much between the Harrington pair.
6. TENNESSEE STUD Joseph O’Brien (IRE)
b c Wootton Bassett - In My Dreams (Sadler’s Wells)
Odds: 33-1
Joseph O’Brien had no hesitation in nominating the Derby as Tennessee Stud’s first major target at three after he won last October’s ten-furlong Criterium De Saint-Cloud, a race won the previous year by the same owner’s subsequent Irish Derby winner Los Angeles, who was third at Epsom.
It might not have been pretty, as Tennessee Stud made fairly heavy weather of beating Green Storm by a length and a half in a race which attracted just three runners, but that’s understandable as the ground was very testing. He’s almost certainly a fair bit better than he looked there.
O’Brien won the Derby on both Camelot and Australia in his short career as a jockey, and he would dearly love to win it now as a trainer. Tennessee Stud looks a viable candidate at the very least.
7. DELACROIX Aidan O’Brien (IRE)
b c Dubawi - Tepin (Bernstein)
Odds: 33-1
Racefans on both sides of the Atlantic will have the fondest memories of Delacroix’s dam Tepin, who enjoyed a stylish success in the Breeders’ Cup Mile for Mark Casse at Keeneland in 2015 and went on to three more top-level wins in 2016, including in Royal Ascot’s Queen Anne Stakes, before signing off with a narrow defeat in Breeders’ Cup Mile again at Santa Anita.
The former dual champion US female turf horse sadly died last year, aged just 12, but she left her mark at stud too, as she had a G1 winner in Grateful at Longchamp in October and ought to have another one some time this year in stablemate Delacroix.
He might not be the ‘sexiest’ of Aidan O’Brien’s many Derby possibles, but after ending his five-race two-year-old campaign with a nose second to Hotazhell in the G1 Futurity Trophy, it’s hard to imagine Delacroix not lining up at Epsom.
He previously enjoyed a Newmarket G3 win over Stanhope Gardens, who also appears in this list, and he looks rock solid.
8. ACAPULCO BAY Aidan O’Brien (Ire)
b c Dubawi - Je Ne Regretterien (Galileo)
Odds: 33-1
This one might have less in the book than the other Aidan O’Brien colts in this list, but he could have a stack of improvement in him.
A strong-finishing second in a seven-furlong maiden at The Curragh on his debut in August, he returned three weeks later for a similar event over a mile and made all to win by a length and three-quarters from stablemate Genealogy, despite Ryan Moore reporting afterwards that he was doing nothing in front and was never out of second gear.
Quite how high he will progress is anybody’s guess, but he is from a good middle-distance family and looks sure to be seen to much better advantage at three.
9. STARZINTHEIREYES Ralph Beckett (GB)
ch c Starspangledbanner - Crystal Hope (Nathaniel)
Odds: 33-1
As a son of crack sprinter Starspangledbanner, this colt might seem an unlikely stayer of the Derby’s demanding mile and a half. However, he’s a rarity in that he’s already a Group winner over ten furlongs in Newmarket’s Zetland Stakes, beating good yardstick Green Storm convincingly, so another two furlongs ought not to be beyond him nearly eight months later.
Unlike with some of these, the question with Starzintheireyes is perhaps not whether he will have the stamina for the Derby, but whether he’ll have the speed, for Rossa Ryan afterwards described him as “a big stayer, a big galloping horse”, adding that “this sort of ground [good to soft] and worse are his conditions”.
Ryan, who might have a tough choice between a host of promising Beckett colts come June 7 added: “He's gonna grow up a lot from two to three – he’s nowhere near the end destination.”
10. OPERA BALLO Charlie Appleby (GB)
b c Ghaiyyath - Dubai Opera (Invincible Spirit)
Odds: 16-1
Charlie Appleby didn’t enter Opera Ballo for the Derby at the initial stage in February, but we needn’t read too much into that as there’s a second stage on April 23, after which supplementary entry is still available at a price just days from the race.
It is too early to say whether Opera Ballo will come under serious consideration, as he has so many other options and early impressions and pedigree both suggest he might have speed in excess of stamina.
However, it’s significant surely that his career has so far mirrored that of last year’s 2000 Guineas winner Notable Speech, having followed a runaway debut success in a Polytrack maiden over one mile at Kempton in January with a hugely impressive defeat of stronger opposition over the same course and distance a month later.
That was in the ‘European Road to the Kentucky Derby’ Conditions Stakes, and he picked up 20 valuable points there for a possible trip to Churchill Downs. But with the 2000 Guineas taking place the same day there will no doubt be much debate over where best to place him, and any decision on the Derby will have to wait until later.
11. WIMBLEDON HAWKEYE James Owen (GB)
b c Kameko - Eva Maria (Sea The Stars)
Odds: 50-1
No up-and-coming trainer made a bigger impression in 2024 than James Owen, who was rewarded in the winter when the Gredley Family switched last year’s Derby runner-up Ambiente Friendly to him.
Wimbledon Hawkeye carries the same predominantly yellow colours, and showed significantly more for Owen at two than his new stablemate had done for James Fanshawe.
Having chased home Derby favourite The Lion In Winter at York, Wimbledon Hawkeye won the G2 Royal Lodge Stakes at Newmarket and finished third to Hotazhell in Doncaster’s Futurity Trophy.
The soft ground might not have been ideal for him at Doncaster, and he raced a bit keen, but he still finished his race off in a manner which suggests he will get further, although a mile and a half might stretch him unless he switches off better.
12. CENTIGRADE Ralph Beckett (GB)
ch c Too Darn Hot - Turko Beach (Hard Spun)
Odds: 50-1
A stablemate of Stanhope Gardens and Starzintheireyes and a very lightly-raced Highclere colt who looks sure to make a better three-year-old.
As a son of Too Darn Hot – and what’s more a breeze-up buy – he’s probably a less certain stayer than Stanhope Gardens. However, the manner in which he saw out the closing stages of a one-mile novice event run on heavy ground at Newbury in October, really powering clear before winning eased down, suggests he’ll be getting a mile and a quarter at least.
Interestingly, Ralph Beckett felt he won despite the ground, rather than because of it. He’s a smart prospect and will be well worth his place in a Derby trial.
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