Weekend Review / Timeform / 08 June 2009 / Leave a comment

Timeform reflect on one of the biggest weekend's of the flat season...

Saturday saw a thrilling Derby at Epsom Downs. It was a damp, miserable looking day but the performance of Sea The Stars lit up the afternoon. The half-brother to Galileo became the first horse since Nashwan in 1989 to win the Guineas and the Derby, and John Oxx's charge has now won both with a degree of comfort that suggests potential superstar rather than mere Group 1 winner.

Sea The Stars handled the preliminaries like the consummate professional and in Michael Kinane he had the perfect partner. Kinane always had his mount in the ideal position, allowed to do so by the colt's generous, strong-travelling nature and any stamina queries were answered emphatically as Sea The Stars went through the gears and quickly asserted to beat the heavily-backed Fame and Glory by one-and-a-quarter lengths. This was John Oxx's second Derby winner from only three runners (the other was third!) and the trainer suggested that a crack at the Triple Crown was unlikely, with the Irish Derby and/or the top mile-and-a-quarter races the main aims for the rest of the season.

Elsewhere on the card, Dandy Nicholls won the Epsom Dash for the fourth time in eight years, Indian Trail faring best of the trainer's four runners to just get up and beat Captain Dunne by a short head. It was a first course success for jockey Paul Quinn.

At Chantilly on Sunday it was the Prix Du Jockey Club (French Derby) and the Group 1 contest was won by Le Havre. He was ridden by Christophe Lemaire and the victory completed a remarkable four-timer on the card for trainer Jean-Claude Rouget. Aidan O'Brien's Westphalia ran well to come third.