WITH six winning favourites going in since Sea The Stars’s famous Coral-Eclipse win, it’s a race punters can really take to the market leaders in.
But that can ensure some burnt fingers and these three in particular hit the punters where it hurts in recent years.
The 2017 renewal of the Coral Eclipse was very much billed as a clash of the three-year-olds, with Derby runner-up Cliffs Of Moher the well-fancied favourite.
You then had Barney Roy and the talking horse Eminent, all close behind in the betting.
But it was Aidan O’Brien’s supposed ‘unlucky’ Epsom second that punters latched onto on the day of the race.
He was available at 9-4 on course, but bookies quickly shut up shop and 7-4 was all you could get.
Ryan Moore was booked and it looked like another weekend of Ballydoyle dominance was expected.
But, nothing went to plan.
He raced keenly early on, and as the runners fought for position on the back straight, Moore ran out of room and was lucky to keep his feet as he snatched the horse up and backwards at a rate of knots.
The damage was done there and then, and he failed to lay a glove on the protagonists up the home straight as Barney Roy and eventual winner Ulysses battled a brilliant fight in the shadows of the packed grandstand.
It was some race, just not for favourite backers.
This globe-trotting wondermare went down fighting, but without a bang on her final ever start.
She broke very slowly and was up against it a way out under a young looking William Buick.
Buick threw all he could at the five-year-old, but it looked as if her Royal Acot exploits when downing the mighty Treve in the Prince Of Wales’s had taken it out of her.
That was the last time we saw John Gosden’s ultra game filly, and thankfully at that time she owed no one anything.
It was a disappointing renewal all round, with the winner Mukhadram and runner-up Trading Leather not winning another race post-Eclipse between them.
After hosing up in the Derby by a ridiculously easy five lengths, the world appeared to be at this three-year-old’s feet.
Everyone, and I mean everyone, expected this Frankie Dettori ridden, Peter Chapple-Hyam-trained colt to win this with a bit left in the tank and continue his sparkling career to date.
But Ryan Moore had other ideas and kicked clear up the rail on Notnowcato to the despair of punters and Dettori.
Moore showed some real cojones making the move on the stands side, but it paid off as he fully announced himself to the weighing room.
The tables were turned in dramatic fashion in the Juddmonte next time out, demonstrating how well Moore did to steal the race.
Only Sea The Stars and Golden Horn have gone off shorter since, and it was a day for burnt fingers at Sandown.
