At least now and again. He had two of the most obvious stayers running for him yesterday and fronted up on Channel 4 emphasising how a strong pace was the key to the race. Personally, I didn’t read anything from anyone that disagreed with that theory. In reality we got a slowly run mess of a race with the front three filling the places despite how the race was run. So it appears a case of result correct but working totally wrong. Given the knowledge of the way the race was to be run would he have put the same horses up? I very much doubt it. As regards the original selection of Ruler Of World he was put up after a pretty ordinary maiden which subsequently hasn’t worked out. At that stage it was basically a punt on little more than a strong stable and pedigree. Of course the Racing Post can breathe a sigh of relief as they don’t mind if Tom got a pin out as long as they can write a headline grabber.
I agree with every word there Stilvi,Tom got lucky but thats Ante-Post betting in a nutshell.Where Tom deserves all the credit in the world is the fact he took 33/1 about a 7/1 winner.I have read Toms work for years now and he really does play his methods down,there could be a couple of reasons why he does that,1 is the fact he doesn’t want to be continually asked how he comes to his conclusions so just simplifies the whole process to being rather mundane so nobody explores any deeper,however I believe Tom plays the modest unassuming character because he’s actually the opposite,I believe he is a meticulous student of not only form but patterns and in coming to the conclusion that
Ruler of the world
was a solid e/w Derby proposition he actually recognised certain tell-tale signs,1 is the fact that Aiden openly admits he trained his half brother
Duke of Marmalade
wrongly as a 3yo and that a Derby campaign would have been the better route,in 16 outings it wasn’t until the 13th run that he finally sent him over his best trip of 12f,he never made that mistake with ‘Ruler of the world’.Aiden brilliant Trainer that he is has often thrown as many Arrows as he can muster at the Derby and in 2007 he actually ran half the bloody field (7 runners) barring ‘Soldier of fortune’ the remainder were nothing special.Tom knows this! He also knows Coolmore have a reputation for naming their horses appropriately,they said last year that the name ‘Camelot’ was sitting waiting for the right horse so naming a horse
Ruler of the world
speaks volumes,Tom knows but just doesn’t elaborate,I like his style!