Epsom Derby: It's OFFICIAL !!

Most recreational punters knew this many years ago. Each renewal has been dominated by AOB / Ballydoyle. But, the gravy-trainers eg horseracing journos at the Racing Post, pundits and fanboys of the outfit have been vociferous in their denials. Instead they've continued to heap praises and support for AOB / Ballydoyle.

Most of the racing media are scared shitless that if they say anything negative about Balydoyle they'll be blackballed: no interviews,no invitaions to the big house etc; not to mention "team tactics" as in the French derby.Horseracing is not a team sport,and anyone pretending that's not what they do is indeed being "deliberately obtuse or naive".

It has taken a long time for someone to speak up about the state of the English Derby. It has become a complete disaster. Fields  dominated by Ballydoyle .One solution would be to restrict one stable to two runners. This would ensure no one could mob handed take the race over and owners would have to spread their Derby entrants amongst different trainers. This would ensure instead of ten runners from one stable five different trainers would be needed ,something along these lines will have to be thought about. The problem has come about because in the era 1960 to 2000 no trainer had more than 100 horses,i think Charley Elsey and Bill Elsey had that number in 1963 but now Ballydoyle has 230 horses and these Super stables are taking all the interest out of this great race.

Restricting entries?
Ludicrous.
Coolmore dominating recently.
Get over it

The way to break Ballydoyle's dominance is for others to breed or buy top class 12 furlong horses. Currently only Coolmore is doing that consistently. Even the Aga Khan outfit is now going for speed, as did Godolphin.

I have not read the comments from Gosden, but if true, how ridiculous.

People moan about the team tactics in France.
All three runners bounced out and ran 11.5 second furlongs for the opening 5f.
It wasnt as though they slowed the pace up and blocked the rest of the field.
They were all good enough then to see off the rest of the pack up the straight.
All three were given the best chance of winning.

As for the Epsom Derby.
Years of successful breeding and buying has put them in the dominant position they are now in.
90% of other breeders are breeding for precocious horses for a quick return.

Im not a fan boy of the stable, or the dominance of the Mullins stable over the sticks. But hats off to them both.

worse thing is that theyre winning the ferby and other major races with not vey good horses, , this derby winner has been rated as the worst in 24 years,  thats really worrying for the rest of uk trainers , but its not just the derby thats under threat , , horse racing itself is under threat with mullins and coolmore

Coolmore breeds their own. As such, the expense is negligible. What annoys me most of all is the battalion Coolmore deploys year in, year out. Only one can win, the others are either riding shotgun for their principal runner and frustrate or negate others in the race. Horseracing is not a team sport; the best horse must be allowed to win on merit and not courtesy of a stablemate doing the donkey work, paving a path for their principal runner or obstructing or decreasing the chance of their opposition eg in the stall draw, position in running, etc.

If this carries on much longer the status or value of the Epsom Derby winner will be devalued even further eg former winners siring national hunt runners; mediocre winners forgotten the next week; etc. To me domination = a devaluation of the status and the standard of the winners.

I can remember Sea The Stars and Sharastani (both Derby winners) doing battles in The ARC the same year. Similarly, Bering (French Derby) and Dancing Brave (a runner-up).

But, I cannot remember an Epsom Derby winner from Coolmore doing battle in The ARC in the same year!

Try harder to remember.
Or even look in the form book

It's more that Epsom and the Derby itself are becoming obsolete. You can't force people to be interested in something, it is organic. I wrote it before but similar to the jumps, the season revolves around one massive meeting. This impacts Ireland, England and France. The 3yo classics simply aren't as important as they used to be.

only camelot did the derby / arc runs  i think

only camelot did the derby / arc runs  i think

Look who sponsors the race/meeting. The Betfred Derby. It's sacrilege really to have bookmakers sponsoring it, Betfred branding littering the track. It's very telling that no corporates appear to be interested.

It's interesting that the flat AND jumps is dominated Irish. Has anybody wondered why that is?
We were told before that with ballydoyle it was their sire,Galileo.
Since he died he's been replaced by others. However,the conveyor belt of G1 winners continues. If one trainer wasn't enough,his son seeems to have picked up training methods which no one else has thought of on this side of the Irish sea.

With jumps we're told they buy the best talent in France.Strange that they always buy the best and the British buy the crud.Before any of you Irish flag huggers go on about rich owners going to Ireland,there's plenty in UK too.
So why is it that Irish trainers have suddenly become so good at the top level?

Why don't we talk about the elephant in the room?

Jim Bolger had a few words on the subject a while ago and very quickly decided to shut up.
Wonder why.

Flat isn't dominated by Irish. It's true obviously that there is one very powerful flat stable and breeding operation in Ireland.

Pretty much all of the superstars in europe have come out of England in recent times. For sure coolmore have cornered the stayers, for now.

But for a bookie sponsoring the Epsom Derby sponsorship of this race is not effective marketing of an entity; the monotonous and predictability of the winner and stable are a non-event. The race has been getting progressively boring and non-eventful. This year's was an unexpected negative courtesy of the BHA and their barmy decision to deem the fav as a non-runner to the consternation of bookies and horseracing associates and participants.

The reason for the non-runner decision was not replicated a few days later in another race and racecourse. The only major exception was the race was not the Epsom Derby. A rule for one, a rule for another...at the whims of the BHA!

Next week is Royal Ascot - the biggest and most prestigious race meeting in the world. No more own goals, plz, the BHA.

greg Wood,Guardian:

Reports that a prominent British trainer found traces of steroids in horses could be seriously damaging for Irish racing’s leaders

Just a few days before senior officials from Horse Racing Ireland (HRI) and the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB) are due to appear before the Irish parliament’s agriculture committee to discuss “integrity and possible drug use” in Irish racing, the Sunday Independent added more fuel to the fire (£) this weekend with fresh claims to back up trainer Jim Bolger’s suggestion last year that drugs are “the number one problem” for the sport in Ireland.

One suggestion is that a well-known trainer based in Britain carried out hair testing on six horses bought from Ireland last year. According to the report, the trainer later told Bolger that the results implied three of the six had been given steroids at some stage, and also hinted at the presence of “currently unidentified possible keto steroids”, which had not been seen in any previous analyses of hair samples at the lab conducting the test.

Mahmood al-Zarooni was banned for eight years in 2013 after horses at Godolphin’s Moulton Paddocks tested positive for steroids.
Talking Horses: why BHA will be in a tricky position if Zarooni returns
Read more
The paper also reported unsubstantiated claims by anonymous sources that steroids and cobalt – the drug at the centre of a doping scandal in Australia in 2015 – had been observed in at least two Irish stables, and also that the sources had reported this to the authorities – to no apparent effect.

The suggestion that executives may have been filing reports of drug abuse under “too difficult” or “too damaging” seems certain to be one that the agriculture committee will want to pursue at the first of a series of hearings on Thursday.

His POW winner is too good for a mile and a half……….

To risk at 12F