A Dream Edged With Gold

By Emma Berry
There are plenty of certainties on Derby day. The walk from car park to racecourse will involve being accosted by gypsies brandishing lucky heather with intent bordering on the intimidating. Open-top double-decker buses will be parked along the inside of the final few furlongs of the track, their passengers scattered about the grass in varying states of inebriation and undress. The Queen will arrive, heralded by trumpeters, just as she has every year since 1953 when, four days after her coronation, Aureole finished second to Pinza to give Her Majesty her best result to date in the colts' Classic. And each year, plenty of owners' and breeders' dreams will be strewn in tatters across the demanding camber of Epsom's switchback while one set of blessed connections will live the day of which they've dreamt all their racing lives. 

Though a successful breeder across decades, with his Hascombe & Valiant Studs' alumni including Footstepsinthesand (GB), Rebecca Sharp (GB) and Miss Keller (Ire), Anthony Oppenheimer has made no secret of the fact that winning the Derby is his lifetime's ambition. 

“It's what we all aspire to as owner-breeders. This could be my chance,” he said recently in an interview in Thoroughbred Owner & Breeder, and yet stamina reservations about Golden Horn (GB) (Cape Cross {Ire}) meant that the colt wasn't even entered for the Derby at the traditional yearling stage. As a son of the miler Cape Cross, and hailing from a family boasting its fair share of Classic milers, Golden Horn would finally force his way into the Derby reckoning with his staying-on victory in the G2 Dante S. in May, the resolution with which he hit the line–along with his equable temperament–giving his owner cause to part with £75,000 to supplement the colt. The betting public stayed faithful, sending him on his way to the post at Epsom as the 13/8 favorite, accompanied by the portentous and patriotic strains of Land Of Hope And Glory from the regimental brass band on the track. 

For once in his short racing life of just four starts, Golden Horn decided to attempt to defy his jockey's wishes by taking a strong hold in the early stages, but the wise old race-riding head of Frankie Dettori–at odds with his effervescent public persona–ensured that Oppenheimer's homebred was handled with restraint throughout the first half of the race while Hans Holbein (GB) (Montjeu {Ire}) set a fierce gallop up front, presumably to test the headliner's questionable stamina. 

Proper racehorses show their mettle when it matters most and when hunting down his stablemate Jack Hobbs in cold blood as the furlong-marker flashed by, Golden Horn demonstrated a resilience equal to the human line that has nurtured six generations of his family at the Oppenheimers' farm just outside Newmarket to deliver a good old-fashioned British-owned and -bred Derby triumph. Such a result was once the norm in Epsom's blue riband, but is now rarely witnessed. 
Runner-up Jack Hobbs (GB) was fully 3 1/2 lengths behind as the winner passed that 'piece of wood' immortalized in Federico Tesio's magnum opus on the breeding of Thoroughbreds, but his performance was credit-worthy nonetheless and gives trainer John Gosden plenty of ammunition to fire at the remainder of this season's middle-distance races in Europe and beyond. Only two seasons ago, Dettori would have been wearing Jack Hobbs's royal blue Godolphin silks, while William Buick was first-call for any Gosden runner. Times change, people move on, and if Dettori harbored any regrets at his parting from Sheikh Mohammed's operation, those feelings will be far from his mind this weekend. 

“John [Gosden] and myself go back 20 years,” said the 44-year-old jockey. “I was meant to ride [1997 Derby winner] Benny The Dip, then I won it with Authorized and finally we've done it together. John has been very constructive in my career, as a friend and almost a father-figure, but now I think we're good mates and I'm really enjoying my time with him.” 
Anthony Oppenheimer, who succeeded his father, Sir Philip, at the helm of Hascombe & Valiant Studs and celebrates his 78th birthday this coming Thursday, is almost certainly enjoying his long-held association with Gosden, too. 

Blinking away tears in the winner's circle, he said, “This was my dream, and it was my father's dream too, and I'm not getting any younger so it's wonderful, almost unbelievable, to have achieved it. We've been breeding for 50 years and I joined my father in the stud about 30 years ago. The closest we've come in the Derby was when we were fourth with Pelerin [in 1980].” 

Paying tribute to his team at the stud, which houses 26 broodmares and also bred 10th-placed Moheet (Ire) (High Chaparral {Ire}) in the race, he added, “Roy Gedge retired a few years ago but he was my stud groom and he brought this horse into this world, so I must say many thanks to him, and all my stud staff have been so brilliant.” 

Golden Horn, who was offered for sale at Tattersalls as a yearling but was unsold at 190,000ns, could so easily have escaped the clutches of the Oppenheimer fold, as his dam has already done. Oppenheimer explained, “I no longer have the mare. I sold her because she hadn't won and sadly I have to move a few on from the stud, but I sold her to my friend Harry McCalmont so I'm delighted for him.” 

McCalmont, standing just yards from Oppenheimer amid the festivities at Epsom, was understandably enjoying a fabulous update for the inmate at his Norelands Stud, which was augmented by Friday's second-place finish in the GII New York S. at Belmont of Golden Horn's half-sister Eastern Belle (GB) (Champs Elysees {GB}). 

“It's been quite a few days,” he said with a smile and confirmed that the now celebrated mare Fleche d'Or (Dubai Destination) has a yearling filly by Acclamation (GB) and is in foal to Shamardal. 

With breeding, as with racing, one certainty is that all involved learn to take the rough with the smooth. A now-valuable young mare may have been lost but a homebred Derby winner delivers a dream chased by many but realized by so few. Oppenheimer will certainly revel in this most golden of days, and rightly so.