William Hill Lingfield Derby Trial Stakes Stats Guide

By Paul Jones

Eleven entries were received earlier this week, including three for Godolphin (Charlie Appleby) and three for Coolmore (Aidan O'Brien), so maybe we can expect a field of around seven or eight.

Run over an undulating, extended 1m3f, which includes a sharp, left-handed downhill turn into the home straight, so similar Epsom in that respect, it therefore should act as a highly-relevant trial. 

Anthony Van Dyck was the last horse to complete the Lingfield Trial-Derby double seven years ago, though the runner-up here two years later in Adayar went on to achieve Epsom success. More memorably for those of a certain vintage, Slip Anchor turned both races into processions in 1985, while both of Luca Cumani’s Derby winners in Kahyasi and High-Rise also prepped for Epsom by winning the Lingfield Trial.

Aidan O’Brien tends to keep his best Epsom hopes away from the recognised Derby trials in Britain - outside of the 2000 Guineas - preferring to prepare them in Ireland instead, but he has still won seven of the last 18 runnings of the Lingfield Derby Trial largely with his ‘B team’. True, Anthony Van Dyck did complete the Lingfield-Epsom double, but answers on a postcard please as to what Alessandro Volta, Age Of Aquarius, Nevis, Kilimanjaro, United Nations and last year's winner Puppet Master went on to achieve. In fact, none of them won again in 29 combined starts!

O’Brien’s three entries this season are Italy, Action and Isaac Newton, all of which have had a run in defeat this season. Of the 26 winners this century, as many as 18 had run the previous month (five of those ran at Newbury last time out), while of the last 23 winners, only eight won on their previous start.

Twenty-one winners of the Lingfield Derby Trial this century could be found in the first three in the betting. of which nine were sent off favourite. The ante-post favourite is the unbeaten-in-two Maho Bay for Charlie Appleby and Godolphin, who prepped Adayar here to gain valuable experience for Epsom and combined to win with Military Order in 2023. Godolphin also won the 2017 running with the Saeed bin Suroor-trained Best Solution.

A stronger trend than either of the previous two stats is that of the last 22 runnings run on turf, nine winners emerged from either stall 1 or 2.