This week Keith Melrose focuses on above-average winners in both the Derby and Oaks.
Most modern Derby winners tend to fall into one of two categories. The first group are the opportunists, the Sir Percys and North Lights and (with retrospect) Camelots, who make use of their physical or mental precocity, or even a dearth of competition among their peers, to shoulder their way into an exclusive club which their ability alone would never have warranted.
The other main type of modern Derby winner is a colt whose connections feel the draw of history. There’s only one Derby and one chance to win it, which is presumably why the likes of New Approach and Sea The Stars competed in a race which, taken in the context of their three-year-old campaigns as a whole, didn’t fit naturally.
The odds are already that Australia will ultimately be filed in group two. He is in Timeform’s eyes already an above-average Derby winner by modern standards, his new rating of 129p for Saturday’s success telling you that. We think there’s more to him than that, though, which in figures we can convey only through that ‘p’ still attached to his rating.
The Derby form looks sturdy irrespective of how you take it: collateral form, visual impressions and Timefigures all demand a positive take on Australia’s length-and-a-quarter success over Kingston Hill (125). The runner-up won last year’s Autumn Stakes and RP Trophy; third-placed Romsdal (119p) had been a fast-finishing second in the Chester Vase on just his third start; Arod (116) in fourth had been similarly inexperienced when an eye-catching runner-up to The Grey Gatsby in the Dante. Australia, much vaunted and already third in a strong-looking Guineas, beat them all, and he beat them convincingly.
Much has been made of Australia’s pedigree, extending so far in some quarters that his Derby win seems to have been foretold rather than earned. That would be doing him a disservice to say the least. Now he’s won the Derby, hopefully from here on Australia will be taken on his own merits- he could easily prove better than either of his esteemed parents (Galileo rated 134, Ouija Board 125). Even more importantly, it shouldn’t be taken that he’s bound to prove best at 12 furlongs. Speed and class have pervaded the Australia story every bit as much as his bloodline, from the early gallop whispers to the deeply impressive manner in which he made up ground around Tattenham Corner.
There’s no doubt that Australia sees out one and a half miles and does it well, though most at Timeform can’t wait to see him tackle 10 furlongs again and would prefer him to run in the Eclipse, as opposed to his stated aim of the Irish Derby. Reports suggest that he’d meet Kingston Hill again at the Curragh. Although that course’s more galloping nature would probably suit Kingston Hill slightly more than it would Australia, don’t expect a different result.
It’s similarly difficult to foresee a different outcome should the main players from the Oaks meet again in Ireland. That’s a reflection of Taghrooda’s superiority at Epsom on Friday, when she looked the winner from a long way out and never gave a moment’s worry, quickening smartly and staying on gamely to win by just shy of four lengths. Her rating of 119p places her among the best Oaks winners of recent years; she’s actually the highest since Sariska in 2009. To achieve as much after just three starts suggests that Taghrooda could be an extraordinary filly.
As opposed to Australia, who ought to go back in trip if anything, you fancy that Taghrooda will stay beyond 12 furlongs such is the way she’s bred and tends to race. At this admittedly early stage she looks to have a good chance of succeeding where Talent and Look Here have just failed in recent years, that being Doncaster and the St Leger in September. More immediately, as mentioned above she ought to win the Irish Oaks, though Epsom hard-luck stories Inchila (114, met trouble in running), Ihtimal (111+, set too much to do) and Marvellous (118, seemed not to handle track/run came too soon) could at least make it interesting.
The Coronation Cup is worth mentioning in dispatches before we leave Epsom. There were few lessons learned and a good number of existing impressions upheld. Winner Cirrus des Aigles showed himself tough, likeable and neither quite as good as his best nor quite as proficient over 12 furlongs in running to 126. Runner-up Flintshire ran a narrow career-best, though at 124 his achievement can’t yet be said to have caught up with this reputation. It’s certainly the case that if Cirrus des Aigles is comfortably beating him over 12 furlongs then he’s still quite a way off being a leading contender for the likes of the Arc.
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In America, the Triple Crown dream lasted longer than it has for a long while before eventually expiring down the Belmont stretch. California Chrome managed just a dead-heat for fourth in the Belmont, essentially outstayed for all he wasn’t disgraced on the figures. A performance figure of 119 is respectable relative to his Master Rating (126) and keeps him higher than eventual Belmont winner, the strong-finishing Tonalist (123). That figure on the winner is higher than for other recent Belmonts and you feel that some of the principals may well have more to offer when the emphasis isn’t quite so heavily on stamina.
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Our final word on Derby week comes from an unexpected place: Auteuil. It was France’s Champion Hurdle (the Grand Course de Haies d’Auteuil) on Sunday, with Gemix securing his second success in the race. Plenty of top French jumpers have struggled to transpose their form away from Auteuil, though you feel, or at least hope, that Gemix might be different.
Six-year-old Gemix has plenty of form that ties in with good-class British and Irish hurdlers. He beat Solwhit in last year’s Grand Course de Haies and only just failed to concede 9 lb to Un de Sceaux back in March. For beating Le Grand Luce by seven lengths, with Zarkandar and Diakali fighting out third a further eight lengths back, Gemix has earned a rating of 170. With any luck connections will be unperturbed by Gemix’s flop in last year’s Relkeel Hurdle, which patently wasn’t his running, and offer him another chance at this side of the English Channel over the winter.
