Normally in racing you place the successful horse’s connections in the winner’s enclosure. After Motivator won this year’s Vodafone Derby at Epsom, it was a case of finding the winner’s enclosure amid the connections, the 230 members of the Royal Ascot Racing Club.
I have not seen the Flat racing crowd in a happier mood for a decade. Forget the crisis in racing’s finances, the long-hovering cloud of still unresolved corruption allegations, the potential penury of the British Horseracing Board. When a horse wins a race as majestically and as stylishly as Motivator won this year’s Derby, it lifts us all out of the rut.
Motivator came into the race unbeaten, having won a Newmarket maiden last August, the Racing Post trophy at Doncaster and then the Dante Stakes at York this season. He was the winter favourite for the Derby. But before the race people were still willing to crab him.
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