RACING DERBY NEWS:AIDAN O'BRIEN will have a quarter of the field in Saturday's Investec Epsom Derby as Ireland's champion trainer attempts to end a nine-year gap in flat racing's blue-riband event and his old ally Kieren Fallon will lead the Ballydoyle team on board Recital.
Fallon had had a choice of the Derrinstown Trial winner Recital and the 2,000 Guineas third Native Khan and yesterday told the latter's trainer, Ed Dunlop, that he wouldn't ride his colt.
"Obviously I'm disappointed for the clients who specifically wanted Kieren, but the enticement of the great Ballydoyle battleship steered him towards their horse," Dunlop said.
Johnny Murtagh was last night confirmed by Dunlop as Native Khan's rider in Saturday's race.
"We've got a very able deputy in Johnny Murtagh who is an outstanding jockey around Epsom and I'm very happy with that," Dunlop said. Murtagh has won the Derby on Sinndar (2000), High Chaparral (2002) and Motivator (2005.)
In addition to Fallon, O'Brien has engaged the top French-based jockey Christophe Soumillon for the Dante runner-up Seville while Colm O'Donoghue will be on board the Chester Vase winner Treasure Beach. The trainer's 18-year-old son Joseph will team up with Memphis Tennessee.
He also left in the Irish Guineas winner Roderic O'Connor but that colt's number one option is the Prix Du Jockey Club at Chantilly the following day.
Nevertheless, the Ballydoyle trainer is travelling in strength to the Derby which he won in back-to-back years (2001-2002) with Galileo and High Chaparral.
Since then, however, O'Brien has had to endure a succession of placings with The Great Gatsby finishing runner-up to Kris Kin in 2003 and Eagle Mountain chasing home Authorized in 2007. Sea The Stars was followed home by four Ballydoyle colts in 2009 while O'Brien runners were second, fourth and fifth behind Workforce last year. Dylan Thomas was also third to Sir Percy in 2006.
Although the Queen's runner, Carlton House, continues to dominate the betting, and the headlines, on the run-up to Epsom, one bookmaker rates the Irish trainer a 5 to 2 shot to win a third Derby this weekend and those odds could get even shorter now that Fallon, the Ballydoyle number one in a tumultuous three-year period from 2005-08, has been engaged.
Fallon's services have also been snapped up for Wonder Of Wonders in Friday's Oaks. With Ryan Moore claimed for Michael Stoute's Havant, O'Brien has also kept Séamus Heffernan on the Irish 1,000 Guineas heroine Misty For Me. He could also run Why and Eirinn in the fillies' Classic.
Jessica Harrington's Siren's Song is the other intended Irish starter in the Oaks.
It is 35 years since Empery last won the Derby for France but the Aga Khan's Vadamar has been added to the Epsom mix along with Pour Moi who beat him into the third in the Prix Greffulhe.
The Aga Khan's racing manager, Georges Rimaud, said yesterday: "We have decided to let him run. He worked well this morning, I am told. The horse has to improve but we hope he can. Pour Moi is a good horse as well but we believe Vadamar has the right to run," he added.
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