Aidan O’Brien’s record-breaking 41st British classic winner was also one of his closest finishes as his filly Tuesday edged out the favourite, the John and Thady Gosden trained Emily Upjohn.
The race, won by a short head at the finish, may have been decided right at the start as Emily Upjohn, under Frankie Dettori, stumbled on leaving the stalls and lost ground, finding herself at the back of the field as a result.
Ryan Moore on Tuesday also steadied his filly and, after Dettori’s mount recovered and got into her stride, the pair raced in the final three right through the contest until they straightened up coming out of Tattenham Corner to face that final, punishing climb to the Epsom finish line.
As they headed up the straight Dettori and Moore went round the field on opposite sides of the track, Dettori nearest the stand’s side while Moore was right across on the far side.
It was Moore who hit the front first but Emily Upjohn was galloping resolutely and as they approached the final furlong she had closed the gap down to a length and a half.
Emily Upjohn, under a Dettori drive, continued to claw back the inches throughout the final furlong but Tuesday was staying on well also and at the line she just held on by a short head from the Gosden filly.
It will be a case of what might have been for Dettori who will rue that tawdry start, failing in his bid for a seventh Oaks, a win that would have seen him become the second winning-most jockey in the race’s history behind Frank Buckle. ‘She made up an awful lot of ground and was an unlucky loser, she should have won,” he said after the race.
It was left to Aidan O’Brien to break the records and this, a remarkable 41st classic win in Britain, cemented him firmly as a man for whom superlatives are fast becoming redundant.
Paying tribute after the race MV Magnier, who oversees the everyday running of the Coolmore empire which supplies O’Brien with the blue-blooded horses the trainer does so well with, said, “He [O’Brien] works harder than anybody I’ve ever met in my life.”
Joint owner Michael Tabor, while fulsome in his praise of the trainer, was also keen to recognise the role of Coolmore supremo John Magnier in spotting and harnessing the burgeoning talent of a young Aidan O’Brien when signing him up to become private trainer at the Ballydoyle yard.
Winning jockey Ryan Moore felt confident both before and during the race. “I always thought Tuesday was going to win…she has got an awful lot of class and the family just keeps on producing.”
The family he was referring to was that of the horse’s pedigree, Tuesday becoming the third classic winner out of her dam Lillie Langtry, but he may as well have been referring to the remarkable O’Brien family headed by Aidan who, by the time he finishes his career, will surely have left the most indelible of stamps on the history of horse racing.
