Lord Derby and Sir Charles Bunbury, who flipped a coin in 1779 to decide whose name would be attached to a new race at Epsom, would still recognise the Derby\u2019s switchback route around the Surrey downs if they could somehow be spirited along for the latest renewal of the Classic on Saturday. While so much else has changed at Epsom since Bunbury\u2019s colt, Diomed, was the first winner nearly a quarter of a millennium ago, they would see a kindred spirit in Vimy Aykroyd, the owner of Pride Of Arras, one of the favourites to be the 246th.<\/p>\n
Enthusiastic owner-breeders, mating the best with the best and then hoping for the best, were the bedrock of thoroughbred racing from its earliest days. For the first 200 years of Classics at Epsom, the typical winners were three-year-olds that had been bred and raced by owners with a lifelong passion for both sides of the game. Breeding a Derby winner was as much of an achievement, if not more so, than having it race in your colours.<\/p>\n
The old way of doing things was swept aside by new money and sovereign wealth from the end of the 1970s as owners such as Sheikh Mohammed of Dubai and his three brothers compiled huge strings of horses and other major players were forced to compete. The small-scale owner-breeder, driven by the dream of striking it lucky at Epsom in early June, was suddenly an endangered species and as the big-money operations \u2013 Godolphin and Ireland\u2019s Coolmore Stud in particular \u2013 dominated the Derby, it even seemed possible that they might be extinct.<\/p>\n
As a result, there is a distinct sense of a 70s revival about the sudden emergence of Pride Of Arras as a leading contender. He raced once as a two-year-old, winning a minor race at Sandown in mid-August, and was an 18-1 outsider \u2013 and a 66-1 chance for the Derby \u2013 when he cantered to post for the Dante Stakes at York last month. One brisk dispatch of a useful field later<\/a> he was down to 5-1 for Epsom.<\/p>\n Aykroyd, who bred Pride Of Arras with her husband, David, has four broodmares at her base in Yorkshire, including Parnell\u2019s Dream, a mare who was also born and raised there and raced in her colours. She produced Pride Of Arras, her fourth foal, in 2022 after a mating with New Bay. While the first three were all winners, her latest ticket in the genetic lottery of thoroughbred breeding is a potential jackpot.<\/p>\n Pride Of Arras\u2019s two-and-a-half minute run for glory is the result of many years of planning, patience and enthusiastic optimism. \u201cWe bought his grand-dam, Kitty O\u2019Shea, privately from Coolmore. She had several foals and we kept Parnell\u2019s Dream,\u201d Aykroyd says. \u201cShe\u2019s bred quite a few winners already but nothing of his calibre and we\u2019re just incredibly lucky to have bred a horse with enormous potential.\u201d<\/p>\n