The Derby - New Ground

There’s been plenty of talk about Midak’s entry in the Derby at Epsom this weekend. It would be very fitting for a horse in the Aga Khan Silks to win the race being run in his honour. Midak is the more likely of the French pair, but all of the media attention on Francis-Henri Graffard’s Colt has overshadowed that fact that Juddmonte have also chosen to send a runner from France.

I’ll begin this analysis by making the point that I don’t think New Ground can win the race. At the time of writing he is a 50/1 shot, so that’s hardly a shrewd piece of betting advice. He’s a talented son of New Bay and both starts this season have suggested to me that he is going to improve for the step up to 12-furlongs. However, he doesn’t have the most aesthetically pleasing action and he was a little unbalanced in the home straight at Chantilly last time out. The ridges at Chantilly can catch out some horses, but they are nothing compared to the tight bend at Tattenham Corner and the camber in the home straight at Epsom. How he handles the hill and the bend will be the key to his race, but if he handles them, it’s not impossible to think that he could finish in the first 5 or 6.

A son of New Bay, his Dam, Gaining, was a Group 3 winner over and extended 10-furlongs in France and comes from a family that stayed 12-furlongs with relative ease. He won both starts as a 2-year-old, including a Class 2 event at Chantilly in October where he had Iowa City (now with Paddy Twomey) 5-lengths behind him in 3rd. Pitched into some deep company as a 3-year-old, he has chased home Cualificar, Azimpour and Nitoi in a pair of Classic trial races at Paris Longchamp and Chantilly. Finishing a length behind the runner-up in the Prix du Jockey Club in the Prix La Force is arguably strong enough form to warrant a tilt at a Group 1 race over the 12-furlong trip. That race had a finishing speed of 107.7% and over what looks likely to have been an inadequate 9-furlong trip, he did well to get that close in a sprint finish. He finished 3rd again in the Listed Prix des Suresnes at Chantilly on 3rd May behind Nitoi and Leffard. Neither of them showed a great deal in the Prix du Jockey Club, but given that they were drawn in stalls 18 and 15 respectively, they had very little chance to show what they could do. Racing towards the rear, he finished his race really well, running the final 3-furlongs in 33.74s (ranked 1st) which included a time of 10.96s of for the penultimate furlong.

The Devin team are in flying form, operating at a 28% strike rate in the last 14 days and they have had 6 winners and 5 places from their last 20-runners in France. The Juddmonte team also have Nightwalker in the race and given that there are other options in France for New Ground, this looks to be more than just a token entry. At present, I’d suggest he has run to a mark of around 108-109 in France. That won’t be enough to win the Derby on Saturday, but he shapes like a horse who will improve again for the extra distance and that might bring him to around 115 or so, which would probably be enough to finish 5th or 6th. If this goes well, there is every reason to think that he could line up in the Grand Prix de Paris at Longchamp in July.