Hint of greatness as Derby delivers a winner of quality

It was about 20 minutes after the great race when the winning jockey had this to say: "Wherever they choose to go with him I'll turn up," Mick Kinane said, and in those words there was more proof than anyone needed to conclude that the Irishman had surged to the Derby winning post on an exceptional horse.

With a glittering future ahead, there is no telling how many millions Galileo will accumulate on the track and as a stallion. That's only money. More important to the premise that sport thrives on heroes, everything about him spells class.

One opinion held here too long to be lightly dismissed is that Kinane has few peers in the art of race riding, but by his own admission Galileo's electrifying surge to victory in one of the race's fastest times required him to do little more than kick from two furlongs out. "I knew as soon as I asked him to quicken that nothing would catch us unless it sprouted wings," he said.

To suggest, as one or two did, that any old jockey could have got Galileo home ignores Kinane's calm presence in the saddle when dealing with the relatively slow early pace and in negotiating the descent to Tattenham Corner, but he needed few of the skills evident when bringing Imagine home in the Oaks 24 hours earlier.

Even the self-effacement of Galileo's trainer, the 31-year old Wexford man Aidan O'Brien, seemed in order when he spoke about a Derby performance that drew comparison with such notable winners as Nijinsky and Sir Ivor who were trained at Ballydoyle by the trainer's great predecessor, Vincent O'Brien. "He has remarkable speed," Aidan O'Brien said of Galileo, who further enhanced the reputation of his sire, Sadler's Wells.

Speed to burn, speed that burned off the challenge of Golan, who did not get into his stride until hitting the rising ground of the finishing straight. "We could have done with a bit more give," Pat Eddery said of the 11-4 joint favourite.

The first rule of betting is never change your mind, and just before the race I resisted the temptation to act on the optimism that had filtered through from Galileo's connections and the confidence conveyed by Kinane's demeanour in the parade ring as he conversed with O'Brien and the owners.

With better luck at the start another Ballydoyle contender, Milan, might have won the French Derby at Chantilly last week, while Imagine's success in Friday's Oaks further suggested that O'Brien's horses were in such splendid order that he was poised to capture his first Derby and remove any doubts about the potency of Sadler's Wells, who had sired five runners-up in the race.

Having taken the 20-1 available about Putra Sandhurst in one of the offices last week, I then went with Golan, who looked a giant in the parade ring. I took heart from the success of Putra Sandhurst's owner, Sultan Ahmed Shah, in the previous race with Pulau Tioman, who came in at 6-1.

All this proved to be loose thinking and a reminder that not too much notice should be taken of messages borne on the ill wind of information.

Galileo's connections apart, plenty of people had cause for satisfaction at Epsom on Saturday not least the organisers who were rewarded with an encouraging turn out for the effort made to restore the Derby's status in the sporting calendar.

There was a distinct whiff of old times in the diversity of the audience and that sense of a great day out lost when the Derby was switched to a Saturday. It helped, of course, that the race fell this year on a day when there was nothing elsewhere in sport to deflect the public's interest, however the turnout spoke of a revival in interest that outweighed the pain of arriving by public transport.

All saw a great racehorse, one in which O'Brien had immediately recognised signs of exceptional quality. As for those of us who did not listen, our remarks at the unfolding of a triumph are not suitable for publication.