Ballydoyle on pole as all Derby roads look to be leading to familiar home

The big question now that the bulk of the trials for the Cazoo Derby next month have been run is: do we know more than we did before the season started?

In a sense we do. Plenty of horses have run, plenty of bubbles have been burst and a couple of reputations have been enhanced. Yet, for all that we are probably back in the position we would have been when assessing the Epsom Classic back in January.

That is, the most likely winner of the Derby will be a colt trained by Aidan O’Brien. Given there were many wondering whether Ballydoyle had anything capable of landing the prize after the first few trials it is a sign of the monumental strength in depth of the Coolmore operation.