sport news Royal trainer Sir Michael Stoute hopes Desert Crown can succeed in Platinum ... trends now
The Queen does not have a runner at Epsom next Saturday to try and to land the dream result in the Platinum Jubilee Derby but there is little doubt that it will give her great pleasure if Desert Crown can win.
The 7-4 favourite will be trying to win the most coveted prize in British Flat racing for Sir Michael Stoute, the trainer who has provided the Queen with more than 100 winners.
Stoute went close to giving the Queen the Derby victory that has always eluded her when Carlton House was third in 2011. As a knowledgeable student of the sport of kings, the Queen will know all too well what a sixth Derby win would mean to 76-year-old Stoute.
Sir Michael Stoute (R) hopes Desert Crown, ridden by Richard Kingscote (L) can succeed in the Platinum Jubilee Derby
For the last couple of years following the death of his long-time partner Coral Pritchard-Gordon in 2020, Stoute has been seldom seen on the racecourse.
The string of thoroughbreds at the 10-time champion trainer’s Newmarket stables is healthy but well down on peak figures.
Twelve years after Workforce gave Stoute his fifth Derby winner, and without a runner in the showpiece event since 2016, some were beginning to wonder if his hopes of adding to an Epsom roll of honour headed by his 1981 triumph with Shergar were over.
But if Desert Crown could win him the Derby again, the Epsom crowd would surely give Stoute an electrifying reception.
Stoute, who does not do emotion, at least not in public, said: ‘I can’t remember if I sat down and thought, I don’t know if I will ever win the Derby again. You just move on and you train what you have got. You can get surprises, you can get disappointments.’
Asked if he has contemplated retirement, he said: ‘I’ve probably thought about it for the last 30 years! If you have a very bad day, you think, “Do I really need this?’’ You have very
