Bill Gredley

NEWMARKET, UK -- It's Alex Cairns's day off but he's at the car park next to the Limekilns at 7.30 on Sunday morning. "If I can't do this for a Derby horse when would I do it?" he says as he awaits the arrival of the Derby second-favourite Ambiente Friendly (Ire) (Gleneagles {Ire}). Cairns is head lad to the colt's trainer James Fanshawe. He chats to Rab Havlin. The pair both hail from the same west Scottish town of Saltcoats but Newmarket has long been their home.  Havlin was appointed...

Robert Havlin has been booked to ride Ambiente Friendly (Ire) in the G1 Betfred Derby, replacing Callum Shepherd aboard the leading Epsom contender when the Classic is run on Saturday, June 1. Trained by James Fanshawe, Ambiente Friendly has been ridden by Shepherd in both his previous starts this season, most notably in the Listed Lingfield Derby Trial S. earlier this month when he announced himself as a potentially top-class colt with an impressive four-and-a-half-length victory. The son of Gleneagles (Ire) is now a best-priced 5/1 for the Derby and...

The daily reality check comes via the evening news. Coronavirus by numbers: new infections and, brutally, the death toll. Otherwise, for people working day-to-day with racehorses and breeding stock, not an awful lot has changed. Yes, we take care not to get too close to other people, wash our hands more, wear latex gloves to the supermarket. But the horses still need to be fed, exercised, mucked out and to be prepared, as much as we all can be, for a return to some sort of normality. In our old...