Sprewell wins Derby Trial Stakes at Leopardstown for Jessica Harrington
The Derby ante-post market has a more open look to it following Auguste Rodin's disappointing run in the 2000 Guineas and the layers were reasonably impressed with Sprewell, Sky Bet quoting the winner at 16/1 and Betfair Sportsbook 20/1 (both from 50s).
The focus pre-race had been on National Stakes second and Group One winner Proud And Regal and the 6/4 favourite had a lovely early position, sitting in third behind the pacesetting Mohawk Chief and Londoner.
Sprewell was never far behind Proud And Regal and took closer order approaching the home turn with Shane Foley keen to cover every move the market principal made. The field fanned across the centre of the course inside the two pole but neither Londoner nor Proud And Regal picked up as expected whereas Sprewell lengthened his stride and quickly put the race to bed.
The patiently ridden maiden Up And Under (11/4) made late gains to take second but the bird had flown with Sprewell finishing three lengths to the good; there were a further two and a half lengths back to Proud And Regal in third as the field finished fairly well strung out.
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Sprewell was beaten on both starts as a juvenile but won impressively on his reappearance and Foley believes the Churchill colt has a bright future.
"He's a very, very good horse," he told Racing TV.
"Wouldn't excite you at home and I wasn't sure how he was going but Kate (Harrington) kept saying to me 'he's fine, he's ready, don't worry about that because he's only going through the motions'.
"He gave me a proper feel when I gave him the squeeze to go after Gavin (Ryan, rider of Proud And Regal) he came back underneath me I couldn't believe it. It was a proper run race, it was a good race so he's a Derby horse hopefully if the ground turned up soft. I think he enjoys that soft ground really well, no reason why he shouldn't go on better ground but he gets through that soft well.
"He's never ran on good ground yet, he does all his work at home on our old gallop. He's that kind of horse (a Derby horse), so it will be interesting to see (where he goes) but today was his main aim so we'll leave that up to Mrs Harrington and the owners what the next step is."
Kate Harrington confirmed that Epsom was firmly on connections' minds for a colt who also held Derby Trial engagements in England and France.
"Epsom is the target but we'll see how he comes out of it and Mum will have a chat with the owners and see where we go but that is their dream to go to the Epsom Derby," she revealed.
"We let him down because we had him ready for that day (seasonal reappearance) but he actually let himself down a bit too much so the last 10 days I've kind of been chasing my tail, hoping that he'd be fit enough for today and he still took a bit of a blow so there's a bit more improvement in him still.
"We looked at the weather forecast on Monday and it looked as though there was a lot of rain coming in but yesterday at Naas I was thinking we'd made the wrong decision and we might be going to Chester on Wednesday with him but the rain did come here last night thank God.
"I wasn't happy about it for a few of our other runners but it paid off with him.
"He's a beautiful mover at home and if you saw him walk around the paddock beforehand he was walking laps around all the other horses. He's only ever contested on soft ground so we're in a bit of unknown on nicer ground, I wouldn't like to see him run on firm but we'll make that call closer to the time.
"I think he's the best chance we've ever, ever had. I said that to Mum. He's a good Derby contender, he's really exciting, he's got the pedigree, he's got everything, he's got the attitude; the more hype before a race, the more it will spark him up."
Proud And Regal may not have lived up to market expectations but trainer Donnacha O'Brien expressed himself to be satisfied with the performance, saying: “I thought he ran well and the first run of the year he might have got a bit tired.
"The last furlong he got a bit of a bump and he might have just had a blow. I thought it was a satisfactory run and we’ll make a plan from here. He was just a little bit rusty for his first run of the year.”
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