BEGGY’S JOY AS EAGLES FLIES IN

Padraig puts drug shame behind him to win Epsom Derby

HOW ironic. In a week where the build up to the Investec Derby was dominated by headlines about an inexperienced apprentice jockey being barred from riding rank outsider Diore Lia, victory went to a jockey who had had just seven rides this season and had never been in the race before.

In terms of experience, 31-yearold Padraig Beggy from Dunboyne, Co Meath is poles apart from Gina Mangan, who had been booked to partner no-hoper Diore Lia. But Beggy’s main role has been that of work rider, making sure the crucial trials on the gallops of master trainer Aidan O’Brien went smoothly as he prepared his six Derby runners.

Beggy had never hit the heights and never before been given a chance to.

His career had looked like it had hit the buffers when, in October 2014, he was suspended for a year after testing positive for cocaine and then giving false evidence in relation to the sample.

When Beggy was booked to partner 40-1 shot Wings Of Eagles, the Chester Vase runner-up, it seemed fair to assume that the son of 2011 Derby winner Pour Moi was batting fairly low down the order in O’Brien’s team.

But effervescent Beggy insisted he had not flown over from Ireland thinking he was just making up the numbers on the longest priced Derby winner since 50-1 Snow Knight in 1974.

Still well behind two furlongs out, Wings Of Eagles flew through the final furlong with such purpose that he ultimately won a shade more cosily than the three-quarter lengths that separated him from Cliffs of Moher, the O’Brien-trained 5-1 shot ridden by Ryan Moore.

A neck further back and with no excuses was Frankie Dettori on 7-2 favourite Cracksman, with Eminent fourth. Beggy said: ‘I have dreamed about this big time and, to be honest, had probably given up on the big day.

‘Aidan has made it happen. It doesn’t matter what the pecking order is when you are riding for him, they are all good horses and all have a chance. I got into a bit of trouble in Australia, a bad mistake. It’s something I have put behind me. I was knocked down then and have had to pick myself up and I have come back fighting.’

With no family connection to racing in his family, Beggy’s interest in the sport had been sparked when his father took him to watch jump racing at Fairyhouse, his local course.

Thoughts about being jockey came when watching one of his more famous predecessors as a jockey with O’Brien. Beggy, who attended Ireland’s apprentice school, said: ‘School was not my thing. I remember Kieren Fallon winning the [2001] 2,000 Guineas on Golan and thinking I would love to do that.

‘But Ireland is very hard if you don’t land with one of the big trainers. I went travelling and went abroad, but I am happy I kept going now.’

Asked how had rated his chances before the race, Beggy said: ‘Cliffs of Moher was the one we probably thought was best. But when we were talking on the plane coming over about all our horses we were saying there was barely a pound between them.

‘Every one of them was trained by Aidan O’Brien for the Derby to come here and run the race of their lives. I knew I was riding a fine big colt. If you ran the race tomorrow maybe one of the others would win it but they were all coming here with a big chance.’

O’Brien’s sixth Derby win matched the achievement of his legendary namesake Vincent, who also trained at the Ballydoyle stables in Co Tipperary.

O’Brien said: ‘Padraig is a worldclass rider, always has been. He is very tactically aware.

‘Wings of Eagles had been working very well. In the Derby every

year, you don’t really know what will happen until you run the race.

‘Those well-bred horses can make dramatic improvement race to race. I didn’t know what was going to happen.

‘I thought Ryan’s horse was open to most improvement. He was just a little bit of a baby and got there and got tired. His next run will be something to look forward to.’

Both Wings Of Eagles initially sat a long way off the early pace set by O’Brien duo Douglas Macarthur and The Anvil.

That played to the stamina strengths of the winner. Inexperience probably counted against Cracksman, according to his trainer John Gosden. Dettori, who picked up a four-day ban for his efforts, said he had been ‘raw and immature’.

And as for Diore Lia. She never turned up.

After all the hullabaloo and ownerbreeder Richard Aylward paying almost £8,000 to enter and get her to Epsom she was withdrawn in the morning after going lame.