Tomorrow's 133rd running of the £750,000 Budweiser Irish Derby had been billed as a clash between the winners of the English and French Derbys. Then High-Rise dodged the issue and the clash didn't roll off the tongue quite as easily. Nevertheless, Epsom and Chantilly are still the form points which the bookmakers are focusing on.
City Honours, just a head behind High-Rise at Epsom, and the French hero Dream Well are set to dominate the market exchanges: 13 to 8 and 3 to 1 are the best prices being bandied around at the moment. By race time, they may seem generosity itself, but the feeling remains that the value in Ireland's greatest flat race could be outside the big two.
Admittedly the formbook says otherwise. The handicappers believe City Honours would have won an average Derby, rating this year's Epsom contest as above average. Watching him battle it out with High-Rise, it was easy to nod in agreement with them. But what was the 150 to 1 maiden Sunshine Street doing just over two and a half lengths behind if the race was so good?
Which is not to dismiss Noel Meade's colt. He must be Europe's best maiden and a very talented horse but he has been beaten three times in Ireland already this year and surely the urge to be awestruck by the Epsom Derby can be easily resisted this time. Provided they handle the forecast, suet-like ground, the home-trained horses are definitely not without hope.
As for City Honours, just cast your mind back 12 months and remember how Silver Patriarch was purported to be a cast-iron certainty after enduring a hard race when also runner-up at Epsom. He wasn't so much brushed aside as swept under the carpet.
The in-form Godolphin team believe City Honours will handle the ground, and he has been working well. But after an all-out drive at Epsom, 13 to 8 isn't a particularly attractive price given the edge could have been taken off him.
Dream Well, who bids to win the race for France for the first time since Winged Love in 1995 represents the team of Cash Asmussen and the Niarchos family, who were runners-up in 1993 with their previous French Derby winner Hernando.
Dream Well ran on late and fast under an inspired Asmussen to beat his stable companion Croco Rouge by a neck with Saratoga Springs, possibly a non-stayer, back in fourth. It was a fine, gutsy effort and, unlike Hernando, Dream Well looks a true 12 furlong horse. The worry is that he may not have quite the acceleration and class of Hernando.
Of the Irish-trained horses, Christy Roche's decision to desert the Aidan O'Brien trio in favour of Campo Catino has led to a mini-rush on Charles O'Brien's colt. Following the pattern of last year's runner-up, Dr Johnson, Campo Catino is a fast improving colt who will relish the trip. But, being by Woodman, there must a be question mark about him relishing a real mudslog.
The same comment can also apply to Takarian and Make No Mistake, but Sunshine Street should run another fine race without quite winning.
In a potentially very trappy classic though, the value suggestion is the other, less publicised, overseas runner Sadian. To make a case for him means taking a rather liberal approach to the form, but an argument can be made that makes a price of 10 to 1 about Sadian quite attractive.
Only 7th at Epsom, Henry Cecil has excused the run by saying the policy of having Sadian right up with the pace was wrong. Ridden differently in the Lingfield Derby Trial Sadian went to within a neck of High-Rise on ground that was firmer than ideal. Sadian is one of the few in the race who positively likes soft ground and he has been reportedly burning up the Newmarket gallops.
Kieren Fallon and Henry Cecil have been in terrific form, and the fact that Cecil, never the most frequent of travellers to Ireland, brings Sadian at all is significant. So significant that, in a race full of questions, Sadian is taken to provide the ultimate answer.
Dermot Weld may be out of luck in the big race, but the nearest trainer to the track can notch up a treble courtesy of Camargo in the Railway Stakes, Key Provider in the Festival Handicap and Stage Affair in the concluding Curragh Cup.
