The Sunday Times - UK (2022-06-05)

10 June 5, 2022The Sunday Times 2GS

Racing Cazoo Derby

1 Desert Crown 5-2 fav

Trainer: Sir Michael Stoute

Jockey: Richard Kingscote

2 Hoo Ya Mal 150-1

Andrew Balding

David Probert

3 Westover 25-1

Ralph Beckett

Rob Hornby

4 Masekela 66-1

Andrew Balding

Andrea Atzeni

5 Changingoftheguard 9-1

Aidan O’Brien

Wayne Lordan

Distances: 2½, hd, 5½, 1

Winning time: 2min 36.38sec

HOW THE TOP FIVE

FINISHED AT EPSOM

T

he rain stayed away, the sun

brightened the afternoon

and Sir Michael Stoute

offered racing a reminder

that age is just a number.

Stoute, 76, won the Derby for

the sixth time and it might

not be an exaggeration to say

his latest victory was also the most

satisfying. This wasn’t any old Derby

winner for any old trainer — rather a

potentially brilliant thoroughbred,

prepared by a master, won in the

grandest style.

Victory came 41 years after Stoute’s

first Derby winner, Shergar. Then, in

the words of the race commentator

Micheál O’Hehir, it was “Shergar first,

the rest nowhere”. The same could

have been said at the end of this 12-

furlong classic as Desert Crown

cruised through the first mile and

then took no time to burn off his rivals

once the jockey, Richard Kingscote,

asked him to quicken.

In the space of half a furlong he

went from upsides the pacemaker,

Changingoftheguard, to six lengths

clear. The gap narrowed a little as the

outsiders Hoo Ya Mal (150-1) and West-

over galloped on in a race for the

minor places. That wasn’t a case of the

winner tiring but rather of a smart

horse feeling he’d done enough. In

fact, he had done more than enough.

Certainly, from recent times, it’s

hard to remember a horse dominating

the race like this. Kingscote and his

wife, Ashley, had sat down in mid-

week at their home in Lambourn,

Berkshire, and meticulously gone

through their 17 rivals, what stalls

they’d drawn, where they were likely

to be positioned in the race and how

he should ride the horse.

“I felt like I was his secretary,” Ash-

ley said after the race.

As it turned out, they could have

cut down on the homework because

Desert Crown makes life easy for the

rider. He’s got so much athleticism

that he broke quickly and smoothly

from the stalls and then, once the race

DAVID

WA LS H

Chief sports writer

began, the difference in class was

apparent. Wayne Lordan set a decent

pace on the Aidan O’Brien-trained

Changingoftheguard, with the better-

fancied stablemate Stone Age tucked

in just behind.

Behind Stone Age, sitting three

wide, was Kingscote and Desert

Crown. At every point in the race it

seemed that he was travelling with

almost ridiculous ease. Down to and

around Tattenham Corner, Kingscote

just kept the horse balanced and

himself calm. It’s so easy to pull the

trigger too soon when you’ve got the

firepower.

Kingscote, 35, has long been an

accomplished rider and Stoute knew

what he was doing when offering him

the opportunity to ride his best

horses. Before this, Kingscote had

only once ridden in the Derby and

then on a long shot that finished down

the field. Yet that’s not how it seemed

as he gave Desert Crown plenty of

time before pressing the accelerator.

What a thrill it must have been for him

when the horse lengthened his stride

and sped clear.

Stone Age, Nations Pride, Walk Of

Stars — all challengers that had been

spoken about before the race — never

saw which way the winner went, only

that he was gone.

He had been prepared in the Stoute

way. That is to say, the trainer sees the

potential at two and then, for more

than a year, prepares the horse for

this one day. Stoute’s style is to do less

to achieve more.

His potential champions are given

time and are often not sent to the race-

course until the autumn of their two-

year-old season. They will do one or

two races as two-year-olds, no more,

and then another two in their three-

year-old year before the Derby.

Desert Crown had even less than

that, only two races before the Derby:

an impressive two-year-old debut

race last year and then the Dante

Stakes at York in May.

He won the race brilliantly and

Desert Crown

scorches all

Derby rivals

Kingscote surges

clear on Desert

Crown to give

Stoute a sixth

Derby crown,

41 years after

the trainer’s first

triumph with

Shergar

Time to make

grounds hostile

for Ukraine’s

players — not

sing their

national

anthem

I am beginning to wonder if the 2022

World Cup in Qatar will simply

become a rerun of this year’s

Eurovision Song Contest – and that

perhaps we should have Graham

Norton presenting for the BBC,

rather than Gary Lineker. I can see

Ukraine hoisting the trophy after the

public vote, the nations who played

against them having not tried too

hard because, after all, we all want

Ukraine to win, don’t we?

I would not have wished to be a

Scotland supporter last Wednesday.

Well, OK, I would not wish to be a

Scotland supporter this Wednesday

or next Wednesday or any other day

of the week. But you see my point.

Home fans are supposed to foster a

hostile atmosphere for their

opponents: they are not supposed to

give them a standing ovation and

actually sing their bloody national

anthem. But this was poor

Ukraine, who everybody

wants to win everything. It

is called displacement, I

think.

We’re too scared to give them what

they really want – a no-fly zone and

maybe some high-tech artillery – so

we end up in this rather craven

position of bunging them some

tanks, patting them on the head and

hoping they win Eurovision and the

World Cup.

I bet the Scotland fans felt unable

to boo and jeer time-wasting tactics,

or bad fouls. And yet qualification

would have meant an awful lot to

Scotland, some recent mysterious

metamorphosis having occurred to

put them on the very cusp. They have

not qualified since 1998 and have

never got out of the group stage.

With the rapid improvement in the

footballing skills of African and some

Asian countries it is difficult to

envisage Scotland ever qualifying

again. This may have been the last

chance, but the Scottish defence —

dilatory, hesitant and at times

immobile — seemed mesmerised by a

team capable of passing the ball.

I can’t remember a single previous

occasion when politics so intruded

into football, and now Wales pick up

the unwanted baton. There have

been national sides who have won

over the neutrals because of their

political predicament — the obvious

example being North Korea (with Pak

Doo-ik) in 1966, whupping Italy at

Ayresome Park. But this stuff is of a

different order because the West, and

the footballing authorities, are

unanimous that Ukraine is in the

right and Russia in the wrong.

Uefa has dropped its long-held

insistence that the sport should be

above politics by encouraging teams

across the continent to wear T-shirts

showing solidarity with Ukraine and

condemning the invasion. This has

caused a little trouble in, for

example, Turkey, where Aykut

Demir, captain of Erzurumspor,

refused to wear the T-shirt because of

western “hypocrisy”. He has a

certain point. After stalling for a

while, Fifa finally decided to kick

Russia out of the World Cup (after a

tirade from Boris Johnson) but it is

rare for countries who launch

military adventures against their

neighbours to be punished by the

footballing authorities.

The Olympics has been a slightly

different issue, traditionally, while

the Soviet Union once refused to play

a World Cup qualifier against Chile in

a stadium which had been used by

General Pinochet to round up and

murder his political opponents and

were kicked out of the tournament.

There is not much consistency in

any of these decisions and Demir

would be right in thinking that the

only transgressions that matter to the

authorities are those that matter to

the western democracies. Everyone

else just has to suck it up.

‘With improving

African and Asian

nations it’s hard to

see Scotland ever

qualifying again’

Rod

Liddle