One of the biggest Flat races of the season arrives at Epsom Downs on Saturday afternoon as the £1.5 million Epsom Derby takes centre stage in the sporting world.
The Group 1 contest, open to three-year-old horses only, is run over the 1m4f distance at the track, and in 2024, 16 runners have been declared for the showpiece race to battle it out for the £882,408 top prize at 4:30 on Saturday.
Many eyes will be focused on City Of Troy, trained by Ballydoyle maestro Aidan O’Brien, who looked like a world-class prospect as a two-year-old before being well-beaten at odds-on in the 2000 Guineas to start his three-year-old campaign. O’Brien won this race last year with Auguste Rodin, who also flopped in the Guineas before bouncing back, but City of Troy hasn’t got the best stall draw from stall number one, which has seen his odds drift slightly.
Another O’Brien runner, Los Angeles, could be the play in the Derby. A winner of the Group 1 Criterium de Saint-Cloud back in October, he backed that up with a win in the Derby Trial at Leopardstown on May 12 and will relish the step up in trip at Epsom.
Away from the Irish challengers, Macduff for trainer Ralph Beckett is expected to be in contention. Fourth in the Royal Lodge on his final start as a two-year-old, he returned at three with a decent second to Arabian Crown in the Sandown Classic Trial and is another who will enjoy the further trip.
Trainer Andrew Balding is no stranger to having big-priced runners go well in this race and he has an outside chance with Sayedaty Sadaty, runner-up in Listed races at Newcastle and Newmarket this session but could well take a giant leap forward here. Sea The Stars won the Derby in 2009 and Bellum Justum, one of his offspring, could pose a real threat for Balding, with top-jockey Oisin Murphy on board.
Before the big one, however, there is no shortage of action elsewhere on the Epsom card with another seven races on offer, kicking off at 1:25 with a Class 2 handicap over the 1m2f trip. Balding could get the card off to a perfect start for him with Portsmouth, scoring in fine style at Epsom in the season opener last month and backed it up with a runner-up finish at Goodwood.
Nine runners will take on the Group 3 Princess Elizabeth Stakes, race two on the Epsom card, at 2:00. Preference is for Dahlia Stakes runner-up Running Lion, who is down in class and she should take plenty of beating. The progressive Sparks Fly, who excelled as a three-year-old, rates as the main danger, very much up in class but wasn’t disgraced in handicap company at Haydock on seasonal return.
The third race on the card (2:35) is the Group 3 Diomed Stakes. Of the eight runners tackling the extended mile distance, Embesto for trainer Roger Varian is taken to get the better of last year’s winner Regal Reality, who is back for more this weekend and also cannot be ruled out having placed in both starts this year.
The lead-up to the Derby cranks up with the five-furlong “Dash” at 3:10 for three-year-olds, and a whopping field of 20 will head to the start. Due For Luck is back on track this season having finished a neck third at Chester last time out to rediscover some form. Another who can bounce back is Vince L’Amour, a winner of a pair of handicaps at Ripon and Catterick last month and was a strong second when up in grade at Chester but bombed out last time around at York. Grandlad and Knicks, both winners last time out, are also ones to keep an eye on in a very competitive Dash.
Clarendon House should be too strong for his rivals in the second “Dash” on the card at 3:45, a winner at York just over a fortnight ago from the re-opposing Looking For Lynda. Sylkie Wilie rates the chief threat, however, handily weighted for this one having not won in 14 outings but was runner-up in this race last year and arrives off the back of a fifth of 15 in a Musselburgh handicap.
The Derby takes all the attention at 4:30 before two further races wrap up the Derby meeting for 2024. It’s tough to look past Ziggy in the Class 2 handicap (5:15), who returned from 15 months off with a second at Epsom’s season opener. In the finale (5:50), the selection is for Mr Wagyu, who is taken to kick on with his superb record in this race having won it in 2022 and was third last year.
Epsom selections – Saturday from Royal Ascot Odds
1:25 – Portsmouth
2:00 – Running Lion
2:35 – Embesto
3:10 – Vince L’Amour
3:45 – Clarendon House
4:30 – Los Angeles
5:15 – Ziggy
5:50 – Mr Wagyu
SuperComputer Predictions
City of Troy has been given a staggering 29.9% chance of winning the 2024 Epsom Derby on Saturday, according to the Best Payout Online Slots SuperComputer.
The SuperComputer is created by generating a specific code, which simulates the race 1,000 times, after being fed information relating to factors such as conditions, weight, jockey, trainer, and form, as well as betting market odds.
With the going officially declared as Good to Soft for the big day itself, the Aidan O’Brien-trained City of Troy has emerged as the huge favorite for the race, with a win percentage chance of 29.9%.
In second place is Ancient Wisdom at 11.8% and then Dancing Gemini at 10.2%. However, the chances of Ambiente Friendly also making a late surge for top spot are just 10.1% as well.
A spokesperson for Best Payout Online Slots said:
“Sports fans have throughout history relied on their ‘gut feeling’ or ‘instinct’ to make predictions for a season, which can certainly be blighted by personal preferences or bias. However, the Best Payout Online Slots SuperComputer aims to remove the sentiment and emotions of predictions and instead replace these inexact methods with logical and intelligent predictions relying on data. By creating the code, we can simulate the race and create as accurate a model as possible – leading to the final matrix of positions we see above.”
How does the SuperComputer work?
The SuperComputer is a probability model, not determined by human predictions or bias. What happens is the SuperComputer estimates the outcome of the race based on a horse’s current strength (based on factors such as conditions, weight, jockey, trainer, and form) and betting market odds.
The machine then simulates the remaining games in a season 1,000 times and constructs an average league table from the 1,000 simulations, to rule out anomalous results.
