29,375-1 Hope wins East Anglian Derby (with Nash pix)

You would have fared very nicely backing Mark Wallis trained runners in Cat One finals this year. Ivy Hill Skyhigh was 7-1 in the Blue Riband, Rail McCoy was a 5-1 shot in the Golden Sprint. You could have had 15-2 about Blueberry Bullet in the George Ing Leger decider, 8-1 about Antigua Sugar in the Juvenile Classic and 7-1 about Hopes Paddington in the Bresbet East Anglian Derby Final.

A five winner – 29,375-1 acca!

The Irish Produce Stakes runner-up was well drawn on the rails and in an ideal slot to take advantage if 1-4f Coolavanny Shado was to fluff his lines.

Unfortunately for connections, the hotpot, contesting just the eighth race of his career (UK & Irish included), made a complete hash of the start clocking his slowest sectional to date. He showed fabulous pace to the bend, but unlike the semi final, he found a runner in his path.

After entangling with Gracias Lorenzo and losing five lengths at the firest bend, the Janssens runner took up the running in the backstraight but had lost several lengths in doing so.

Meanwhile, Hopes Paddington had recorded his fastest sectional of the event and as he closed up into the third bend, the favourite looked beaten. Sure enough he was outstayed on the run-in by the 27.66 winner. It was the fourth win in the event for Mark Wallis following: Fear No One (2005), Clondoty Alex (2016) and Antigua Storm (2021).

It is only a month ago that Nic Jeal, husband of owner Amanda Jeal, stated his hopes of retaining his ‘home’ Derby. Bizarrely, fate struck once again for the owners destined not to see their dogs win a Cat One race.

The death of The Queen saw the original semi final date pushed back from the planned four days to a week resulting in the final being delayed by a week. The Jeals, along with Nic Brereton of sponsors Bresbet, were both caught out having made prior commitments for the new final night.

Promoter Simon Franklin said: “It was very unfortunate, but who can predict these things? Without horseracing, our final crowd was down to 700 though at least we had a better Saturday than we might have expected with over 1,000 here.

“I thought it was a good final and it would have been interesting to see how the favourite would have gone from trap one. But great credit to Mark winning the event once again. Seamus (Cahill) supports us every year; I hope his time comes.”

BresBet East Anglian Derby Final run up: Gracias Lorenzo (t6, 5.17 sectional his fastest in the event) leads early from hot favourite Coolavanny Shado (t3 right) and winner Hopes Paddington (t1 on rail). Photo: © Steve Nash