Aidan O’Brien has completed the Oaks-Derby double three times and will be triple-handed going into Friday’s fillies’ Classic at Epsom.
The trio of Minnie Hauk, Giselle and Whirl fly the Ballydoyle flag in a race O’Brien has won 10 times. His son Joseph also throws his hat into the Oaks ring with Wemighttakedlongway.
Father and son will also fly the Irish flag in Saturday’s Derby, but if that bumper 19-runner field appears wide open then the Oaks looks to revolve around Godolphin’s unbeaten 1,000 Guineas winner Desert Flower.
Success for her will complete trainer Charlie Appleby’s collection of English Classics and continue Godolphin’s momentum after their sparkling Guineas double at Newmarket.
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Since then, though, the Ballydoyle bandwagon has hit top-gear too. Henri Matisse and Camille Pissarro are French Classic winners, while Lake Victoria landed the Irish 1,000 Guineas.
Friday’s Group One action also features the Coronation Cup and another hot favourite in French star Calandagan. His owner, the late Aga Khan, who died in February, will be remembered in the Derby race title and his green colours will be carried by Midak.
O’Brien pulled off the Epsom Classic double in 2001, 2012 and 2020. But in 2012 he also landed the Coronation Cup, a landmark hat-trick achieved through the trio of Was, St Nicholas Abbey and Camelot.
His two hopes for the older-horse contest this time, the last two Leger winners Jan Brueghel and Continuous, try their luck against Calandagan, but another Classic victory will be the priority.
If some uncertainty reigned about what Ryan Moore would ride in the Derby, before he opted for Delacroix, it always seemed a done deal that he would end up on Minnie Hauk in the Oaks.
The Cheshire Oaks isn’t normally Ballydoyle’s preferred route to Epsom glory, but it has a proven pedigree of identifying future Epsom winners, most notably Enable in 2017.
Minnie Hauk won smoothly at Chester, proving her versatility in terms of ground in the process, so Moore’s selection is significant considering Giselle won by a wide margin at Lingfield and Whirl landed the Musidora at York.
Those are the three major Oaks trials in Britain, although the Guineas winner represents another level of competition again.
No less a judge than Kieren Fallon, a four-time Oaks winner himself, who now rides work for Appleby, has labelled the Oaks a foregone conclusion, even going so far as to suggest he would fancy Desert Flower if she lined up in the Derby.
This will be a half-mile further than Desert Flower has run before. Although Appleby and Co are confident of her stamina, it is still a question mark about a filly that made most of the running in her Guineas success.
Any such freewheeling instincts could prove costly over the trip, and a surface that’s forecast to be no quicker than “good” at best.
Giselle managed to win impressively at Lingfield while doing plenty wrong. She presents Colin Keane with a shot at a first English Classic and a quandary as to how best to settle her.
In contrast Minnie Hauk and Whirl (Wayne Lordan) looked professional in their trials, while Wemightakedlongway landed the Navan race won by last year’s Oaks winner Ezeliya en route to Epsom.
However, everything is likely to pivot around Desert Flower.
“We all know that the trip is going to be the question mark and we won’t know whether she stays until we run her over it,” Appleby said.
“She looks like a filly who will get a mile-and-a-half and, as far as we are concerned, she has won the best trial for the race.”
Any vulnerabilities, though, and the Ballydoyle team could set up another major Epsom success story.
