A WORD of advice for those considering taking the short odds about the hot favourite Silver Patriarch in tomorrow's Budweiser Irish Derby: Rerun the video of the Epsom Derby and consider the number of times Pat Eddery raises his whip arm in the vain but glorious attempt to force Silver Patriarch in front of Benny The Dip. Consider how each dull thud on the grey's shiny hide could diminish the favourite's chance for compensation at the Curragh.

Fanciful? Possibly. After all, Silver Patriarch has had three weeks to get over that grueling scythe down the Epsom straight but the question mark over the effect of that run is what today's big race revolves around. Did that heartstopping blitzkrieg from apparent hopelessness around Tattenham Corner mark Silver Patriarch's soul as well as his backside? Last year's winning trainer is gambling that it has.

Dermot Weld doesn't exactly cut the archetypal picture of a desperate, flinty eyed gambler. The Curragh trainer, who saw his colt Zagreb shock racing with a 20 to 1 victory in the Irish Derby last year and celebrated it in his home only yards from the winning post, normally presents a brand of urbanity that makes Cary Grant look like a souped up Jerry Lewis.

Yet no one is under any illusions that behind the crooked grin and easy manner is an intensely competitive instinct. It's an instinct that saw him break the mould with Vintage Crop's Melbourne Cup victory in 1993? Go And Go's Belmont Stakes win in 1990 and it's an instinct that allowed Token Gesture's owner Walter Haefner to splash out £70,000 to supplement his filly into the Derby with some degree of confidence. Haefner's money may be on the line but Weld's judgement is, too. Gamblers aren't all cut from the same cloth.

If Weld is wracked with anxiety though, it's hard to tell. With Casey Tibbs, far from a nohoper either, also running for him in the Derby, he displays a controlled excitement about the day but it's an excitement cooled by logic.

"If Silver Patriarch is the same horse he was at Epsom, then he will win. I'm pretty sure of that. If he is. If he isn't, it opens the whole thing right up," Weld considers. "We've seen down the years horses who've won at Epsom and then flopped at the Curragh, horses like Roberto. Silver Patriarch got 20 or so backhanders from Pat Eddery at Epsom and had a very hard race.

Which is where Token Gesture comes in. Along with the other filly in the race, Strawberry Roan, she was supplemented into the Derby on Tuesday, just ten minutes before the noon deadline.

Less than 48 hours earlier Token Gesture had won her second race of the season at Gowran and been targeted for the Irish Oaks. Forty eight hours, however, can be a long time in racing.

"The easy call would have been to wait for the Oaks which Michael Kinane thinks she's capable of winning but if she can win an Oaks she can run well in a Derby. You can never be afraid of a challenge and you must have belief in your own ability and your horses. It was a practical, businesslike decision but also a difficult one which we left until as late as possible to see the make up of the opposition. She has a good chance of being placed which will increase her value dramatically, much more so than if she was placed in an Oaks," Weld concludes.

Talk of only being placed, however, doesn't square with such a move and Weld does admit that both Token Gesture and Casey Tibbs are capable of winning the Derby at their very best.

That Weld is in a position to make such an admission seemed improbable even at the start of this month. When the season started in March, Weld's Rosewell House yard geared up as per normal unaware that an insidiously secretive sabateur was lying in wait. Equine viruses are the bane of a trainer's existence but one strain, the Rhino virus, attacked Weld's horses with bewildering stealth. Only now is its momentum declining.

"The worst I've ever had," Weld says quietly. "It wasn't an evident virus. The horses had no temperatures, no nasal discharge, no cough, no outward sign of anything wrong with them in any way. We had no inkling. We don't put any pressure on them at home at the start of the year and mine usually take a few weeks of the season to warm into it, so I wasn't worried at first but on the track they were running very flat. As soon as pressure was put on them, they were gone.

For a 120 strong stable of blue bloods where expectations of success are taken as read, it was immensely frustrating. There is no vaccine for the Rhino virus, which Weld, as a qualified vet, blames on a lack of up to date research by the pharmaceutical companies, so the irritating conclusion he had to come to was that all he could do was wait.

"Patience. Life as a racehorse trainer makes you learn patience. There was nothing magical that we could do so we just sat and suffered," he grins, the laidback ease giving the impression that three months of grooving his golf swing was almost welcome. However, watching as the early season prizes were snapped up, mainly by the emerging Aidan O'Brien, was frustrating.

"The infuriating part was that the better horses took longer to get over it. Stage Affair, who I believe is my best three year old, is only over it now and he still hasn't raced. The Derby has just come too soon for him," he says. Now it's a case of making up for lost time and if Silver Patriarch is any way below par tomorrow, it could be made up in one spectacular swoop. Circumstances seem to be falling in Weld's favour.

"If the French Derby winner Peintre Celebre was coming there is no way Token Gesture would have been supplemented but I think there are seven or eight horses with live chances of winning with him not here. Even with Silver Patriarch, it's not cut and dried.

I think the Irish horses are very evenly matched on the ratings but I have to say Strawberry Roan and Dr Johnson are the two Irish horses I am concerned about. Strawberry Roan is beautifully bred and will have her ground and Dr Johnson has beaten Token Gesture at the Curragh already. Having said that, Token Gesture will like give in the ground too, has won over the trip and is 6lb better off with Dr Johnson for two and a half lengths," he says.

Although he marginally prefers Token Gesture's chance, Weld doesn't dismiss Casey Tibbs who has beaten Strawberry Roan already this season in the Ballysax Stakes and travelled badly to France for his abortive attempt on the French Derby.

"He has a great turn of foot. Watch the video of the Ballysax and watch how be left Strawberry Roan for dead. If he can do that once, he can do it again," Weld adds.

Video. It could be the winning of the Derby for punters. An Epsom replay of Silver Patriarch could make him as near impregnable as makes no difference but the question mark remains. "We've one to beat," says Weld. "He's the obvious horse and will be very difficult to beat but you should never shy away from one horse."

Only the foolish or the insanely brave will dismiss Dermot Weld's judgement being proved right yet again.