Focus On The Flat: 2025 Epsom Derby blown wide open after wild week
Resident racing expert Adam Smith (@Smido11) takes a closer look at the leading contenders for next month's Derby at Epsom in his latest Focus On The Flat column.
Flat racing insight – Epsom Derby 2025 betting analysis
What do you make of that then? Just when you thought the Epsom Derby ante post picture was business as usual, the racing gods saved the best until last. Or should we say, the wildest until last.
The final Derby trial, the best Derby trial in the eyes of everyone – except Aidan O’Brien and ‘The Lads’ – the Dante blew the biggest race of them all absolutely wide open.
Just as it was looking like business as usual in the Derby betting (O’Brien dominating and Charlie Appleby having a standout contender), and less than 24 hours after I said Ralph Beckett was having a shocker with his Classic contenders, up pops Pride Of Arras at 18/1 in the Dante, followed by 16/1 Damysus and 7/1 Wimbledon Hawkeye. 8/11 Dante favourite and long term Derby market topper The Lion In Winter well beaten in sixth. Second favourite Alpine Trail tailed in last.
The Lion In Winter started Dante day as the 11/4 favourite for the Derby. He finished it at 6/1. But by the following Monday, The Lion was back into 5/2 favouritism. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Pride Of Arras went from 50/1 to 5/1.
It’s absolutely wide open.
Tame Lion has plenty to prove
The Lion In Winter was disappointing, there’s absolutely no doubt about it. This year’s Ballydoyle ‘chosen one’ was weak all day in the Dante betting until about ten minutes before the off. 11/8 into 8/11, smash. Someone thought he’d run well. He didn’t.
Yes, he’s been off the track since last August and never raced beyond seven furlongs. But it wasn’t good. Some may argue he was hampered a furlong out by the eventual second, yet the race had already gone away from him by then as far as I’m concerned.
Might he have finished third at York with a clear run? Maybe, but when was the last time a Dante third was half the price of the winner for the Derby and a quarter the price as the second? You could call it the O'Brien effect.
The Ballydoyle boys have been telling us for years the Dante is too close to the Derby. This year it is actually the longest gap between the two it possibly can be, but will he even go to Epsom on the back of that?
They’ve been spectacularly right when turning round poor seasonal reappearances with the last two Derby winners. Comparisons have been aplenty between TLIW and the two most recent Derby winners that shared the same stable. But this is different to me.
City Of Troy and Auguste Rodin were Derby horses running over too short a trip in the Guineas. The Lion In Winter was a Derby horse running in a Derby trial. Plus, here they have less time, and a much less experienced horse in The Lion In Winter.
Of course, TLIW could go on and win the Derby and Aidan will prove to us for the umpteenth time that he is the master. I was wrong on City Of Troy last year and could be wrong on TLIW this year. But don't let the previous two winners impact your judgement on this horse. It is a very different case.
New contenders state their case
Pride Of Arras came here on the back of just one start last year when winning well at Sandown in a maiden. He's clearly taken a jump forward over the winter and is now a leading contender in what clearly looks an open year.
Inexperience could be his undoing at Epsom. One mile four furlongs to the start, in the June heat, in front of 70,000 people. That would all have to be a concern on his third career start.
Damysus ran with much credit in the Dante for the Gosdens. The horse that hampered TLIW, he looks a Derby type for sure and deserves consideration at 10/1. Wathnan's retained rider James Doyle will have something to look forward to on his injury comeback.
As a result of the pretty chaotic Dante, we needed a new favourite and who better to provide it than Aidan O’Brien, obviously. Delacroix was upgraded from 4/1 joint second favourite to 5/2 market leader. That didn't last long, with TLIW returning to the top of the market some 72 hours later.
Delacroix has already won twice this year in the traditional Derby trials in Ireland. Latterly at 1/3 against inferior opposition, he looked visually decent but there’s question marks about the form of 2025.
To be fair, the son of Dubawi did win the Group Three Autumn Stakes and was a nose second in the Racing Post Trophy last year. A possible trip to France for their so called ten furlong Derby might be a factor in TLIW's price getting shorter and Delacroix getting bigger.
Ruling Court was a good Guineas winner where stamina paid off in a shadows of the post battle with stablemate Shadow Of Light. He’s long been a Derby horse in the eyes of Appleby and certainly has the best form of anything we’ve seen so far this year in this division. The main question will be around his stamina – and we'll get answers to that at Epsom.
As usual, O’Brien mopped up the Chester trials but you’d be hard pressed to argue that Lambourn (Chester Vase) and Mount Kilimanjaro (Dee Stakes) beat much. He also won both Classic trials at Lingfield including Puppet Master in the Derby trial, but like his stablemates who won at Chester, did any of them beat anything of substance? Probably not.
There’s clearly a lot more water to pass under this ante post bridge between now and June 7th and it's absolutely wide open. Rest assured, we’ll have it all covered on Races Now.