Desert Crown the latest Derby winner to stay in training

Last year’s Derby winner Desert Crown is set to make his eagerly-anticipated return to action in Thursday's Brigadier Gerard Stakes at Sandown, the first time he’ll have been seen on a racecourse since maintaining his unbeaten record with a scintillating performance at Epsom.

The official winning margin there was two and a half lengths, but even that doesn’t do justice to the superiority of Desert Crown, who travelled smoothly throughout and impressed most with the turn of foot he showed to shoot clear inside the final two furlongs, already having the race in safe keeping when he was eased down close home.

It was a performance (which you can watch below) that announced Desert Crown as a top-class colt in the making – potentially one of the best Derby winners we’ve seen this century – and it’s just a shame that he was forced to miss the rest of his three-year-old campaign due to a minor foot injury.

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His connections will be keen to make up for lost time in the months ahead and it always adds plenty of intrigue to the season when a Derby winner is kept in training as a four-year-old. That is especially true in the case of Desert Crown, simply because we don’t know just how good he could be, yet to be truly tested in three starts and surely with his best days still ahead of him.

It’s certainly rare for a Derby winner to return as a four-year-old with the expectation that they will take their form up another notch. For context, Desert Crown will be the eleventh Derby winner this century to race on at four and the first to return with a small ‘p’ attached to his Timeform rating, denoting that he is likely to progress further.

Top-rated Derby winners to stay in training this century

• 2010 Workforce Timeform rating 133
• 2002 High Chaparral 130
• 2021 Adayar 130
• 2022 Desert Crown 129p
• 2006 Sir Percy 129
• 2012 Camelot 128
• 2013 Ruler of The World 128
• 2004 North Light 126
• 2018 Masar 125
• 2020 Serpentine 124
• 2019 Anthony Van Dyck 123

*Ranked by Timeform rating prior to first 4-y-o start

Admittedly, Desert Crown might not need to improve to make a winning return in the Brigadier Gerard – he tops the field on Timeform’s weight-adjusted ratings ahead of last year’s Coronation Cup winner Hukum – but it serves as an ideal starting point to his season, as it has for so many horses trained by Sir Michael Stoute over the years.

The leading trainer in the history of the Brigadier Gerard with 12 wins, Stoute notably won the race in 2011 with Workforce, who was having the first start of his four-year-old campaign having shown top-class form to win the Derby and Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe the previous year.

The decision to keep Workforce in training looked highly likely to pay off judged on the manner of his Sandown victory, though it didn’t really turn out that way as he failed to add to his tally in three subsequent starts at the top level, putting up his best effort when beaten just half a length behind So You Think in the Eclipse.

Incidentally, Stoute has won the Derby six times altogether and 2004 hero North Light was the only one of his other winners to stay in training as a four-year-old. He too reappeared in the Brigadier Gerard, but it proved to be an anti-climactic campaign as he suffered an injury when filling the runner-up spot at Sandown and didn’t make it to the racecourse again.

The only active trainer to have bettered Stoute’s tally of six Derby wins is Aidan O’Brien, who has saddled a record eight winners of the race since the turn of the century, five of whom raced on beyond their three-year-old season.

As for what that quintet went on to achieve, it’s fair to say that results have been mixed, with only one of them – 2002 Derby winner High Chaparral – managing to win another race at Group/Grade One level in their later years.

Having also won the Irish Derby and Breeders’ Cup Turf as a three-year-old, High Chaparral then proved himself at least as good as ever in winning three of his four starts the following year, notably landing the Irish Champion Stakes and a second successive edition of the Breeders’ Cup Turf.

Camelot was another multiple Classic winner for Ballydoyle in 2012 – he won the 2000 Guineas and Irish Derby either side of his Epsom triumph – but he failed to scale the same heights in three starts as a four-year-old having had colic surgery during the winter.

He justified short odds on his return to action in the Mooresbridge Stakes but then came up short back at the top level in the Tattersalls Gold Cup and Prince of Wales’s Stakes.

O’Brien made it back-to-back Derby wins when Ruler of The World struck in 2013, but he too found it tough going the following year when his only success came in the Prix Foy. He was subsequently down the field in both the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe and Champion Stakes.

It was a similar story with O’Brien’s last two Derby winners, Anthony Van Dyck and Serpentine, successful at Epsom in 2019 and 2020, respectively.

Anthony Van Dyck also won the Prix Foy as a four-year-old, but a pair of runner-up finishes was the best he could manage in Group One company, latterly when beaten just a head under top weight in the Caulfield Cup. He sadly suffered a fatal injury on his next start in the Melbourne Cup.

As for Serpentine, he was a shock 25/1 winner when making all in the 2020 Derby and hasn’t come close to matching that form again. Sent to Australia and gelded after an underwhelming four-year-old campaign for O’Brien, he was well held in last year’s Melbourne Cup for Robert Hickmott and was last seen winning an Eagle Farm handicap on his debut for Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott.

Serpentine may have avoided the ignominy of failing to win another race after his Derby triumph, but the same cannot be said of Sir Percy and Masar, both horses who, like Desert Crown, met with injury setbacks after winning at Epsom.

2006 winner Sir Percy did recover quickly enough to squeeze in another run at the backend of his three-year-old campaign, but he was down the field in the Champion Stakes and didn’t fare much better in three starts at four, running his best race when beaten less than two lengths into fourth in the Dubai Sheema Classic.

A first Derby winner for Charlie Appleby in 2018, Masar missed the rest of his three-year-old season having suffered an injury on the gallops when being prepared for the Eclipse and it wasn’t until Royal Ascot the following year that he made his belated reappearance.

The result was a tame fifth in the Hardwicke Stakes and he was swiftly retired after finishing last of six in the Princess of Wales’s Stakes next time.

With that in mind, it shouldn’t be taken for granted that Desert Crown will pick up where he left off when he makes his return to action at Sandown and his first task is simply to prove his wellbeing after so long on the sidelines.

Hopefully, he’ll show that his engine is still intact and then we can get excited about him potentially lining up in some of the most prestigious middle-distance prizes during the summer, with the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot appealing as a suitable target.

That raises the prospect of a mouthwatering clash with another former Derby hero in the shape of Adayar, who proved himself a top-class three-year-old in 2021 by following up his Epsom win with victory in the King George.

Admittedly, it hasn’t been entirely plain smoothing for Adayar in the interim and he was limited to just two runs as a four-year-old, but the form he showed when beaten just half a length behind Bay Bridge in the Champion Stakes wasn't far off his very best.

A rare commodity as a Derby winner to be kept in training as a five-year-old, Adayar will hopefully have a full campaign at the highest level in 2023 and his reappearance in the rescheduled Gordon Richards Stakes at Newmarket was as straightforward as you’d expect for a horse of his ability, just needing to be kept up to his work to win by two and a half lengths with a bit in hand.

With a Timeform rating of 128, Adayar promises to be a worthy opponent for a fit-and-firing Desert Crown when the time comes, while the likes of Vadeni (130), Bay Bridge (129), Luxembourg (128) and My Prospero (128) all possess the talent to make a significant impact in the middle-distance division, too.

Throw into the mix the as-yet-unidentified winner of the 2023 Derby and we have the very real prospect of three winners of the blue riband going head-to-head at some stage this season.

It might not have worked out for every Derby winner to have been kept in training in recent years, but all the more reason to applaud connections of Adayar and Desert Crown, two horses who will certainly add plenty of intrigue to the 2023 Flat season.

Derby winners this century and their Group-race wins aged 4+

• 2002 High Chaparral (2003 Royal Whip Stakes, 2003 Irish Champion Stakes and 2003 Breeders’ Cup Turf)
• 2004 North Light (None)
• 2006 Sir Percy (None)
• 2010 Workforce (2011 Brigadier Gerard Stakes)
• 2012 Camelot (2013 Mooresbridge Stakes)
• 2013 Ruler of The World (2014 Prix Foy)
• 2018 Masar (None)
• 2019 Anthony Van Dyck (2020 Prix Foy)
• 2020 Serpentine (None)
• 2021 Adayar (2023 Gordon Richards Stakes)

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