ENGLISH King has trainer Ed Walker dreaming of Epsom after a faultless display in Friday’s Derby Trial.
He earned quotes of 6-1 for the Investec Derby and shone on a day that may have thrown up a new star.
Sent off the joint 9-4 favourite, Walker’s three-year-old danced his way around the undulations of Lingfield and cruised to the lead under a motionless Tom Marquand.
Andrew Balding’s well-backed Berkshire Rocco could not live with the winner on the run in and was three lengths behind in second, and well clear of the third.
On only his third start, English King was professional throughout despite showing some signs of inexperience before the off and looked the real deal as Marquand sat pretty, full of confidence.
The son of Camelot joined Pinatubo at the top of the Derby betting with Saeed bin Suroor’s Military March at 7-1.
Walker said: “Owner Bjorn Nielsen was brought up in Epsom and the Derby has always been his dream. We hope this might be the horse that helps take us on to the next level.
“That was exciting and you just wouldn’t quite know with him. He goes through the motions at home and is a very relaxed and a playful horse. It has been a fact-finding mission today and he couldn’t have done any better.
“The exciting thing is he has a high cruising speed, he has a turn of foot and he stays and those three together are the three qualities you need in a very good horse.
“We’ve had some good horses, but not a Group q horse. Stormy Antarctic has bashed on the door a few times, we’ve had a few others place in Group Ones, but now he is as exciting as we have had.
“We were hoping, but not expecting, because we have nothing to match him at home, so it’s really exciting.”
The winning jockey said: “Coming here today, there is always a question mark down that hill and he still clearly has signs of immaturity, so to have won that impressively and gone away in the style he did, we are all pretty excited about him.
“He is one to look forward to for the future, not just for Epsom.”
Earlier on the card, Miss Yoda was less than impressive in winning the Oaks equivalent, but did what was required.
It wasn’t pretty but Miss Yoda gets the job done in the Oaks Trial at Lingfield
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She earned quotes of 16-1 for the big one at Epsom after Rab Havlin dug his filly out of a hole to get her up on the line and win John Gosden’s fourth Lingfield Oaks Trial.
The race was won by the Oaks winner Anapurna last season but Gosden may have one or two sharper fillies this season judged on Miss Yoda’s showing today.
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