Let’s be honest: the Derby was decided not at the winning post, but at the declaration stage, when Benvenuto Cellini was scratched and left a field of 16 looking like the remnants of a party everyone else had already left.
The ground was soft. The stars aligned. And Christmas Day, Aidan O’Brien’s fourth-string, fourth-choice, fourth-everything colt, trotted home as the 7-1 winner of a race that felt less like a classic and more like a lucky dip.
For the punters who backed Christmas Day on the nose, this was a belated gift. For everyone else who backed anything that preferred a firmer surface — and for those who bet on Benvenuto Cellini before the non-runner ruling — it was a lump of coal in the stocking.
The moment the race unravelled
The rain came. The ground went soft. And suddenly, the entire complexion of the Derby shifted like a soggy picnic blanket.
Christmas Day had finished third in the Dante Stakes on good-to-firm ground in May. On that evidence, he was a 7-1 shot only if you squinted hard and ignored the form book. But then the heavens opened, and Ronan Whelan’s mount suddenly looked like a different horse entirely.
As Whelan himself put it, the “stars aligned” — a phrase that usually precedes a fairy tale, not a 7-1 winner who had previously looked like the third-best horse in a trial.
Christmas Day beat James J Braddock (third) and Pierre Bonnard (seventh), both of whom he’d already dispatched on soft ground at Leopardstown in April. So the form wasn’t a fluke, but it was a very specific kind of form — the kind that only shows up when the going is described as “soft” and the field is thin on quality.
What we learned — and what we didn’t
The Derby is supposed to be the ultimate test of class. On Saturday, it was a test of who could handle the mud best. That’s not a disqualification — plenty of great Derby winners have handled soft ground — but it leaves a lingering question mark over Christmas Day’s place in the pantheon.
He’s a very average winner of the Derby, and that’s not a criticism of the horse. It’s a reflection of the fact that the race was essentially a lottery, with the big names either failing to fire or, in Benvenuto Cellini’s case, not showing up at all.
The Irish Derby later this month will tell us more. If Christmas Day can back this up on a different surface, against a stronger field, then we’ll have to recalibrate. But if he flops, this Derby will go down as the one where the weather won.
The bigger picture: Epsom’s rotten luck
Epsom can’t catch a break. The main elements were all in place for a feelgood Derby: a double-figure field, major trial winners all present, and fresh incentives to lure punters back to the infield. Then the weather gods delivered a soaking, and the non-runner ruling turned the race into a farce of paperwork and form-book head-scratching.
For the punters who backed Benvenuto Cellini before the non-runner ruling, the pain is acute. They backed a 5-1 shot and ended up with nothing but a receipt. For those who backed Christmas Day, the joy is real but qualified: they won on a horse who was only a 7-1 shot because of the rain.
This is the peril of trying to micromanage racing. You can’t control the weather. You can’t control the ground. And you certainly can’t control the fact that sometimes, the best horse in the race doesn’t even get to run.
Christmas Day is now a Derby winner. History will record his name alongside generations of champions. But history won’t record the rain, the non-runner, or the feeling that this Derby was decided by forces far beyond the track. For that, you had to be there — preferably with a brolly and a sense of humour.
Enjoy the win, Christmas Day. But don’t expect the rest of us to believe it until we see you do it again.