Tag: derby

Who is John Gosden?

Born in Lewes, East Sussex on March 30, 1951, John Gosden is the son of John ‘Towser’ Gosden and worked as assistant trainer to Vincent O’Brien, Sir Noel Murless and Andrew ‘Tommy’ Doyle, in California, before taking out a training licence in his own right in 1979. In 1983, Gosden saddled what he later described as his ‘first big winner’, Bates Motel, in the Grade One Santa Anita Handicap at Santa Anita Park and a year later won the inaugural Breeders’ Cup Mile at the now demolished Hollywood Park with Royal Heroine. All told, he trained over 500 winners in the United States before returning to Britain, to train at Stanley House Stables, now Godolphin Stables, in Newmarket in 1989.

Gosden saddled his first British Classic winner, Shantou, in the St. Leger in 1996 and his second, Benny The Dip, in the Derby the following year. In 2000, Gosden moved to Manton, near Marlbrough, Wiltshire and immediately enjoyed further Classic success, winning the 2,000 Guineas with Lahan. However, the bulk of his Classic winners, which currently number eleven, were trained at his current base, Clarehaven Stables on the Bury Road in Newmarket, to which he moved in 2006.

Overall, Gosden has won the St. Leger five times, the Oaks three times, the Derby twice and the 1,000 Guineas once. The 2,000 Guineas remains elusive but, with over 3,500 winners, including over 100 at the highest Group One or Grade One level, to his name worldwide, he is undeniably one of the most successful trainers of his, or any other, generation.

Which was the last horse to win the 2,000 Guineas and the Derby?

Historically, the three English Classic races open to three-year-old colts – namely the 2,000 Guineas, Derby and St. Leger – constituted the so-called ‘English Triple Crown’. However, the last horse to win all three races was Nijinsky in 1970 and, in the intervening five decades, breeding for speed and the obvious attraction of more glamorous races, such as the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, has meant that Triple Crown contenders have been few and far between.

That said, since Nijinsky, such luminaries as Nashwan in 1989, Sea The Stars in 2009 and, most recently, Camelot in 2012 have all completed the 2,000 Guineas – Derby double. Nashwan and Sea The Stars both bypassed the St. Leger in favour of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe and, although Nashwan ultimately missed the Longchamp showpiece after a ‘lifeless’ defeat, at long odds-on, in his preparatory race, Sea The Stars confirmed his status as one of the greatest racehorses of all time by becoming the first horse in history to complete the 2,000 Guineas – Derby – Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe treble in the same year.

By contrast, the last horse to win the 2,000 Guineas and the Derby, Camelot, did attempt the Triple Crown. Nevertheless, despite starting long odds-on for the fifth and final Classic, Camelot went down by three-quarters of a length to 25/1 outsider Encke.

Who was Sir Henry Cecil?

The late Sir Henry Cecil, who died of cancer on June 11, 2013, at the age of 70, is best known as the trainer of Frankel, the highest rated horse in the history of Timeform and World Thoughbred Rankings, who retired, unbeaten in 14 races, in October, 2012. However, while Cecil, who was kinghted for services to horse racing in 2011, may have described Frankel as ‘the best horse I’ve ever seen’, he was arguably one of the greatest trainers in history.

Unfortunately his career was overshadowed by controversy but, in his heyday, between the late Seventies and early Nineties, Cecil was Champion Trainer ten times. Overall, he saddled 25 British Classic winners and was particularly adept with fillies, winning the Oaks eight times, including with Fillies’ Triple Crown heroine Oh So Sharp in 1985, and the 1,000 Guineas six times. He also won the Derby four times, including with British Horse of the Year, Reference Point, in 1987, the St. Leger four times and the 2,000 Guineas three times. Until June, 2018, when Poet’s Word, trained by Sir Michael Stoute, won the St. James’s Palace Stakes, Cecil also held the record for the most winners at Royal Ascot, having saddled 75 in his long, illustrious career.

What was unusual about 1844 Derby winner Running Rein?

The Derby Stakes was inaugurated in 1780 and, while the distance was extended from a mile to a mile-and-a-half in 1784, the race was restricted to three-year-old colts and fillies from its inception. The horse that passed the post first in the 1844 renewal of the Derby, appeared, at first glance, to be the three-year-old Running Rein, but a subsequent investigation revealed that the ‘winner’ was not, in fact, Running Rein, nor any other three-year-old.

In what the Solicitor-General later described as ‘a gross and scandalous fraud’, the original owner of Running Rein, one Abraham Levi, a.k.a. Goodman, had substituted a four-year-old, by the name of Maccabeus, to run in the Derby in place of the three-year-old. Obviously, a four-year-old was ineligible to run in the Derby, so the horse purporting to be Running Rein was disqualified and the race awarded to the runner-up, Orlando. Apparently, Maccabeus had been entered to run in races under his own name before he was purchased by Levi so, to allow him to be trained, as ‘Running Rein’, for the Derby Levi recruited an Irish horse – perhaps unsurprisingly, a five-year-old – to complete the subterfuge by masquerading as the ‘real’ Maccabeus.

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