STAYING GOLDEN
Beware “expert” fears for Horn in Derby
BACK in the swinging sixties, Harold Steptoe (or was it Wilson), said: “A week is a long time in politics”.
With the Blue Riband (the Derby, not the chocolate biscuit) looming large on the horizon, a helluva lot can happen in hours in the racing game, believe me.
The greatest Flat race on the planet, despite what the French and Yanks chunter about, takes place on June 6. And if this race doesn’t send a shiver down your spine, its time you took up watching topless darts on the radio.
Controversy courts the Epsom Classic and sure enough, ‘the wise ones’ were pontificating after Golden Horn skooshed up in the Dante, traditionally our strongest trial.
But haud the bus, he’s no’ even entered!
As the dust settled on the Knavesmire, owner Anthony Oppenheimer wasn’t kicking down any doors to supplement his son of Cape Cross and indeed is reported as saying: “If you look through the family you don’t see much staying more than one mile two furlongs.”
Clearly, coming up with £75,000 wasn’t an issue for diamond geezer Tony, whose family have been responsible for selling 85 to 90 per cent of a girl’s best friend mined.
The suggestion of going down the Peter Savill route, a la Celtic Swing who shrewdly avoided a clash with Lammtarra at Epsom in 1995 to land the French