Wexford man Aidan O’Brien made history on Saturday with another win in the Epsom Derby. The Ballydoyle based trainer won with Serpentine who backed up the win in a maiden at Curragh.
Serpentine was a complete outsider, at least by the odds of 25/1. Jockey Emmet McNamara was also looking for his first win in his first Derby. The wins take O’Brien’s record to 8 wins. Khalifa Sat finished second at massive odds of 50/1, while another one of O’Brien’s horses Amhran Na Bhfiann finished in third at odds of 66/1. Ed Walkers English King could only manage 5th, while Ryan Moore was 6th on board another from the Ballydoyle stable, Mogul.
McNamara opted to take a lead from the front and he stretched the lead coming up to the 2f pole. This is probably what won the race as the other horses in the race left it to late to make any kind of impact. In the end Serpentine won by 5 and a half lengths. Speaking after the race McNamara said, “I think I got a little bit of a freebie. I had huge amount of confidence in the horse having spoken to Aidan during the week”.
The Limerick man continued, “He said he was a horse that is going to stay a mile and six well. He said jump, go your own tempo and just from halfway, from the six to the five, give him a breather. He said he’ll keep going and he was right”.
O’Brien was impressed with McNamara. Speaking to Racing Post he said, “Emmet gave him a brilliant ride. He judged the pace well and he knew he was on a horse that would stay every yard of the mile and a half.”We know the road is so long with so many links in the chain,” he said. “You never expect anything, you always do your best, hope it will happen and then accept the result.”
