Triple Crown legend Steve Cauthen hails Derby frontrunning tactics

RACING legend Steve Cauthen believes Emmet McNamara’s Investec Derby-winning ride aboard Serpentine was a tactical masterpiece.

The unsung McNamara, having just his ninth ride of the year, made all on the unheralded Aidan O’Brien-trained horse and established a decisive lead on the descent to Tattenham Corner.

And while the beaten jockeys faced criticism for not riding closer to the pace – Serpentine still had more than five lengths in hand despite slowing in the final quarter mile – Cauthen believes such criticism is misplaced and that McNamara, part of the work riding team at Ballydoyle, deserves high praise.

Now living in Kentucky, Cauthen was speaking 35 years after adopting similar frontrunning tactics on the late Sir Henry Cecil’s Slip Anchor who was another wide-margin winner of Epsom’s showpiece race.

The difference then was that Slip Anchor was the clear favourite while Serpentine – a record eighth Derby win for the aforementioned O’Brien – was lining up just a week after losing his maiden tag.

Cauthen, who was a teenage phenomenon when he became the youngest jockey to win America’s fabled Triple Crown in 1978 thanks to his partnership with Affirmed, was a masterful pacesetter on both sides of the Atlantic.

He also made all in the 1987 Derby on Cecil’s Reference Point, though his lead was always a slender one throughout the mile and a half race. “Early on I was thinking he (McNamara) was just going the pace that suited him, as Aidan always tells them,” Cauthen told the Nick Luck Daily Podcast.

“By a mile out, where they level off, it looked like he was travelling really well. Shortly after that he let him let him freewheel down the hill like I had done with Slip Anchor and all of a sudden he started opening up with no real effort, then I thought ‘wow, they’re going to have to do something to catch this horse’.

“When they got into the straight, he was 10 to 12 (lengths) clear and I didn’t think they would catch him if he was any sort of a horse at all, and he more than got the job done.

“It did remind me of Slip Anchor.

“I wasn’t really asking him coming down the hill and that was what I saw again, he just let the horse do it all on the bridle – he wasn’t asking him at all.

“He might have clucked at him telling him to come on, but the horse was taking him and coasting, opening up with little to no effort which makes a huge difference – it left him enough to see it out.”

Cauthen believes the unique nature of the Epsom track lends itself to front-runners as it is hard to make up ground from the rear of the field.

“Because of the camber, it’s like running down the side of a mountain into the rail, so horses tend to lean that way,” he said.

“It’s hard to get a sustained run out of a horse, even if they’re really good. Pegging back eight to 10 lengths, even if the one in front is not the greatest that ever lived, is tough for any horse.

“I thought it was a very good ride. I don’t know what Aidan’s instructions were, but the kid used his initiative coming down the hill. He didn’t sit and wait for the others. It was a very instinctive ride. It proved there’s nothing wrong with going from the front, even in the Derby.”

Meanwihle John Gosden is looking forward to the rest of the campaign with Enable despite the mare suffering the third defeat of her career on her seasonal bow in Sunday’s Coral-Eclipse at Sandown.

A third Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe win remains her ultimate target in the autumn and she satisfied her trainer when second to Charlie Appleby’s Ghaiyyath over a trip short of her optimum.

Looking towards the rest of the season, Gosden told At The Races: “The King George would be the plan. We were lucky the Eclipse was only one day late because of everything, so we’ll look towards the King George, then York (Yorkshire Oaks) and Paris. I don’t want to over-race her.”

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