Why did jockeys mess up the Derby? Because they couldn't risk being 'the eejit'

The reason Serpentine won the Derby so emphatically, depriving us of any sense of excitement or any real emotion apart from the irritation of not knowing whether the best horse won or not, is down to something Charlie Swan told me during the week.

We were chatting about tearaways, specifically Make A Stand and Limestone Lad, whom he encountered during the heady days of Istabraq in the late 1990s, when Swan said: "If you're the first one to go after them [tearaways] and then they stop, you feel like a bit of an eejit. All of a sudden, you're in front three out and you've set the race up for everything else. It's embarrassing."

That is why nothing got into the Derby. That is why Serpentine was allowed to stride along in splendid isolation. That is why Frankie Dettori and Ryan Moore, two of the most ingenious men to ever hop up on a horse, were not within hailing distance of the winner rounding Tattenham Corner.