PENDING: Dawn Approach set to emulate father in Derby

Dawn Approach will bid on Saturday to emulate his sire (father) New Approach and win the Blue Riband of the turf, the Epsom Derby.

Dawn Approach, trained in Ireland by Jim Bolger, who also trained New Approach, won the English 2000 Guineas on his previous start and should he win the Derby will become the third Irish horse in five years to achieve the classic double.

The one doubt hanging over him is will he stay the extra half mile – the Guineas being over a mile – and his 11 rivals will be hoping they can expose this potential chink in his armour.

Bolger, whose colourful career included him selling a showjumper to a then Corporal Moamer Kadafi, later the ruler of Libya, says while doubts remain over his stable star’s stamina, he has other qualities that can be more than sufficient to get him over the line first.

“He has a wonderful temperament and settles so well I would not rule out him being able to get the extra distance,” said the 71-year-old.

Victory for him would also come as a welcome boost to Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who bought 51 percent of the horse from Bolger last June, after his Godolphin Operation was hit by a doping scandal involving one of his trainers, Mahmood Al Zarooni earlier this season.

Godolphin’s former leading jockey Frankie Dettori has also had his reputation muddied by a doping scandal which saw him banned for taking cocaine but while he was finally cleared to ride on Thursday, plans remain fluid whether he will ride one of the five horses trained by Godolphin’s bitter rival Aidan O’Brien.

O’Brien’s main hope looks to be with his Derrinstown Derby trial winner Battle of Marengo, who will be ridden by his son Joseph, and will be bidding to give the 43-year-old Irishman his fourth win in the race and second in succession after Camelot won last year.

“Joseph has always ridden Battle Of Marengo, I think he’s probably short enough odds to ride him,” said O’Brien.

In a cosmopolitan field, France training great Andre Fabre saddles the progressive Ocovango, who will be ridden by 20-year-old Pierre-Charles Boudot, as the trainer bids to add to his win in the race with Pour Moi in 2011.

Fabre is not concerned that the young jockey might be overawed by the testing course of Epsom, which has got the better of some leading jockeys in the past.

“He is young but he has been all round the courses in France and has enough experience thanks to that,” said Fabre.

Germany will have their first runner in the race in the shape of Chopin, who has been supplemented at a cost of £75,000 ($114,000, 87,500 euros) for the race by his new Qatari owners, and is not without his chances.

“He’s really good, and he’s improved since his last race, and I’m really happy with him. But how good he is compared to the good Irish, English and French horses, we don’t know yet,” said his 51-year-old trainer Andreas Woehler.

“And, I’m sure that he can stay this (mile and a half) distance – I wouldn’t worry about that.”

The home challenge is woefully poor putting up just three runners, none from the heavyweight stables, but the best of them Libertarian would prove to be an appropriate winner.

For Libertarian would make Elaine Burke the first woman to train a Derby winner, and come on the centenary anniversary of the death of suffragette Emily Davison, who threw herself in front of King George V’s runner in the 1913 edition and died of her injuries.