Who To Follow On Day Two Of Epsom's Derby Meeting

James Mackie | @JMackieRacing

Thu 02 Jun 2022 12.21

Epsom 15:30

2(12)

Desert Crown

J: Richard Kingscote

T: Sir Michael Stoute

N/A

Age: 3

Weight: 9-2

OR: 117

Days: 23

Our win pick ahead of the great race is the Sir Michael Stoute trained Desert Crown who looks to be the freak in the field, for the handler who has previous winning this race.

The three year old son of Nathaniel was a 280,000gns purchase as a yearling and has been seen twice to date, winning both events emphatically.

Running once last season as a juvenile over 8.5f at Nottingham in November, the colt went on to beat a smart field by close to six lengths.

Saved for this season and said to be only 80% fit for his first outing in the Group Two Dante Stakes at York, he went on to rout a good field by nearly four lengths.

The performance was extremely taking and with him set to improve in a big way for the run he is very hard to look past.

Charlie Appleby sends a strong team to Epsom on Saturday and following his form for this season already, he is worth following this weekend.

Starting in the opening race of the afternoon he fields the second favourite Blue Trail who will be looking to bounce back to winning ways off the back of his latest third.

In the Group Three Diomed Stakes he has another live chance with Modern News who is the current 11/10 favourite and has a big chance to land a hat-trick.

The feature Epsom Derby sees the Newmarket handler field three runners, with the supplemented Nations Pride holding the best chance of the three, but close behind him is Walk Of Stars and Nahanni with last year's Derby winning rider Adam Kirby in the saddle.

Appleby heads into the meeting sporting a strike rate of 20% for the last two weeks, which has seen him land three winners from his last 15.

The jockey who could have a big day on Saturday is the talented Tom Marquand who holds a handful of big chances across the afternoon.

In the opener he rides for retained trained William Haggas on Grenoble who has threatened to be smart but now needs to show it.

Marquand rides the favourite in the Group Three Princess Elizabeth Stakes in Bashrikova who made a superb seasonal debut and has every chance of building on that.

The rider jumps on Mountain Peak for Ed Walker in the Dash and then quickly gets ready for the Epsom Derby where he holds an each way shout with Sonny Liston for Charlie Hills.

Marquand heads into the meeting sporting a strike rate of 20% for the last two weeks, managing to land 13 winners from his last 66 rides.