After Ruler Of The World had won the 234th Derby, the owners, the Coolmore team, were asked if it hadn’t been something of a hostage to fortune giving the horse such a name. Drily John Magnier replied, ‘Not really. There have been plenty of bad American presidents.’ Given the struggle between the two top racing empires of Coolmore and Sheikh Mohammed’s Godolphin, it did however look like a case of ‘anything you can do…’ Back in 1998 Sheikh Mohammed was so impressed with the two-year-old Yaazer that he renamed the horse Dubai Millennium and in 2000 Dubai Millennium duly won the World Cup for Godolphin. Now Ruler Of The World has won the race everybody wants to win.
Coolmore currently does rule the racing world and not just because of the steroids scandal that has temporarily clouded Godolphin’s reputation. Standing on the winner’s rostrum at Epsom in their dark morning suits, John Magnier, Michael Tabor and Derrick Smith looked like three wise old crows who have collected not just the early worm but a whole lawn-full too. This was the team’s third successive Derby victory. The first, third and fourth horses were sired by its star stallion Galileo and the second by his son New Approach. In five years, 12 of the 20 horses who have come home in the first four in the Derby have been owned by Coolmore, all but one of them trained by Aidan O’Brien.
Coolmore chose to leave Magician, another potential Derby entrant, at home in Ireland, but with O’Brien there it still had its magician at Epsom. I watched him through the finishing touches before he sent out the last of his Derby entrants from the parade ring on Saturday. First he squatted down to tighten the girth.
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