Aidan O’Brien and James Fanshawe may have both trained winners of the Champion Hurdle but whilst the former will be bidding for his 10th Epsom Derby triumph on Saturday the latter will be saddling just his second runner in the ‘blue riband’ of flat racing.
O’Brien is responsible for the favourite City of Troy and Fanshawe for the strongly fancied Ambiente Friendly in what many acknowledge is an open race and perhaps not the finest field ever assembled.
The two trainers could not be more different — O’Brien the recordbreaking Irishman with a stable packed with blue-blooded thoroughbreds backed by the mighty Coolmore Stud operation.
Fanshawe has punched above his weight since becoming a trainer in 1988, sprinter The Tin Man and miler Soviet Song delivering multiple Group One successes.
Adding a Gothic novel touch to Fanshawe’s operation is the ghost of 19th century British riding legend Fred Archer — who grief-stricken at the loss of his wife and son committed suicide — is rumoured to haunt the Pegasus stables he created.
“Fred built the yard and he is still around,” said Fanshawe earlier this week.
“He can give good advice hopefully. He won the Derby five times so he’s got some experience.
“A long time ago the lads (stable staff) actually did get him up on the ouija board. I don’t know how it works but they got him and they did a reenactment.
“He told them that Unblest was going to win which he did.
“It all came out on telly and they got a lot of stick about it, but they made contact with him.”
Even the normally undemonstrative O’Brien’s eyebrows might be raised at such behaviour.
Not for him wheeling out the ouija board to summon up Vincent O’Brien, his legendary predecessor at the Ballydoyle stables, to ask how he restores City of Troy’s battered reputation.
City of Troy failed to live up to his label of a champion when ninth of 11 in the English 2000 Guineas earlier this month.
‘A great prize’
O’Brien, though, has been here before, Auguste Rodin disappointed in the 2000 Guineas before redeeming himself in landing the Derby last year.
“There is a weight of expectancy with him,” said O’Brien of City of Troy.
“City Of Troy has an unbelievable mind.
“The Guineas was a let-down because we were all expecting.
“It just went against us and we have to accept that, move on and try to get back to where we hoped we would be.”
For O’Brien — another of whose runners Los Angeles is considered a dark horse — a horse’s ability is as much down to his mental faculties.
“What you can’t measure is mind and determination and that is the most important thing -– horse or human,” said the 54-year-old.
“Do they really want it?”
O’Brien has sometimes been criticised for overdoing his entries for the Derby.
The same cannot be said of Fanshawe.
Fanshawe’s only previous Derby runner Environment Friend finished 11th in 1991 and he runs Ambiente Friendly in the same colours of Bill Gredley, though the Gredley Family have joined the patriarch as the listed owners.
That is why Ambiente Friendly’s participation makes punters sit up and pay attention — especially after impressing in winning the Lingfield Derby trial earlier this season.
Showing there is little room for sentiment when a Derby is up for grabs the Gredley Family have replaced his regular jockey Callum Shepherd with the more experienced Rab Havlin.
“He (Havlin) seems to get on with him well and they have a good rapport,” said Fanshawe.
There will, though, be plenty of tears were he to prevail.
The man responsible for buying him Freddy Tylicki — the 80,000 Guineas (84,000 euros) purchase one of nine last year at a two-year-old sale to celebrate Gredley’s 90th birthday — once had aspirations to be sitting on a Derby contender.
However, they were cruelly shattered when he was left paralysed from the waist down when four horses fell in a flat race at Kempton Park in October, 2016.
Fanshawe — who resembles a wise owl with his large spectacles — is dismissive of those who say this Derby lacks class.
“The Derby has been going for 245 years and stood the test –- it’s a great prize.”
