Derham out to strike again with red-hot Slugger in Morebattle mission

graciously deflects any praise he's due when asked what the key has been to unlocking the potential of his new

Slugger

in town. 

It’s a legitimate question, given that the six-year-old has won all three starts this season for Derham following a summer switch from Iain Jardine’s yard in Dumfriesshire.

It’s also one which invariably will be asked again in Kelso’s winners’ enclosure on Saturday should land the decisive blow to take out the £120,000 Bet365 Morebattle Hurdle.

“I’m not sure if I’ve found the secret,” says Derham modestly. “I just think he’s matured. In that sense, we’re lucky as he’s come to us at a good time.”

Either way, Derham’s success with a horse that was developing a reputation for being a bit of a loony in his early life is impressive.

While he was undoubtedly well-treated off 112 when making a winning debut for Derham and stable jockey Paul O’Brien at Carlisle in early November, his subsequent successes at Doncaster and then Musselburgh on New Year’s Day - both by narrow margins under Alice Stevens - were achieved in the manner of a handicapper who still has a bit left in the locker.

“I’ve seen it before with horses who can be quite headstrong, sometimes they just take that extra time to grow up,” continues Derham. “I’m too fat these days to ride him! One of our lads, Dom, rides him every day and they clearly get on really well.

“Slugger is a lovely horse, an absolute joy to deal with. In fairness to him, he’s been Mr Straightforward since the day he came here. 

“Changing tactics on him, I think, has helped. He’d spent his whole life being dropped out. So when we took Slugger for a racecourse gallop before Carlisle, I suggested to Paul to ride him more positively. He’s responded really well to it.”

So, too, you suspect, will his connections even if Slugger’s 100-per-cent record for Derham comes to an end on Saturday.

The Fight Club partnership of owners includes former world No1 golfer Lee Westwood and Danny Willett, who won the Green Jacket at the 2016 Masters; when, coincidentally, the same two Englishmen were paired together for a dramatic final round at Augusta. 

Derham already had major champions Brooks Koepka and Graeme McDowell on his roster of owners prior to this season. So what has suddenly made him the tournament golfer’s go-to trainer?

“I don’t know about that,” he laughs. “Graeme and Brooks have Givemefive with us, and Lee’s had horses in the north with Dave for a while, so I guess they maybe got chatting about me when they were away on tour.

“Danny’s come in with Lee and Dave on this one and I’m very grateful that they chose me to send Slugger to. I’ve not met Danny yet, but I met Lee at Carlisle and he’s a really nice guy.”

While having any high-profile owner helps, Derham admits there is an added difference when those owners have played elite-level sport themselves. Surprisingly, however, he insists it doesn’t bring added pressure.

“I think anyone who’s competed at a high level in sport understands the peaks and troughs that go hand in hand with it,” Derham says. “No matter how good you are, you can’t win every week. That’s especially true for pro-golfers because they’re competing against another 150-odd players most weeks.

“We’ve also got Brentford Hope, who’s owned by a bunch of professional cricketers - Jamie Overton, who’s one of my best mates, his twin brother Craig, Liam Livingstone, who’s away with England just now, and Joe Clarke.

“They’re sporting owners who want to get stuck in, compete and have a right good go. Of course, sometimes it’s not going to be good enough and you’re not going to win. But they can accept that. For me, that’s something owners with an elite sporting background perhaps understand and deal with better than other owners.

“That said, it doesn’t half help if you have a bloody good horse! The cricket lads have one in Brentford Hope, Givemefive has done well for Graeme and Brooks, and hopefully we’re getting there with Slugger as well.”

Following a testing winter, during which he endured well-documented problems with flooding to his gallops, Derham is now seeing plentiful signs of the green shoots of spring.

“We’re past all that happily, and I’m glad we don’t have to talk about that any more,” he adds.

“I always knew we were going to have a quiet January. There’s been nothing wrong with the horses. They’ve been perfectly healthy, they were all just needing a run because they were lacking a bit of fitness and were running against horses who were race fit. But I was always confident it would turn - and it has.”

The conversation turns back to Slugger, and his chances of providing Derham with the most valuable victory of his training career so far? And, of course, potentially setting himself up for a shot at the £100,000 bonus Morebattle sponsors bet365 are again putting up if the winner goes on to score at Cheltenham.

That’s not an easy feat to pull off, especially given the short turnaround time. But neither is it impossible, as The Shunter proved four years ago by following up his Morebattle win for Emmet Mullins and then owner Paul Byrne with another in the Plate, over fences, at the Festival just 12 days later.

“I’m very happy with the form the yard is in and the form he’s in,” Derham says of Slugger, who has a County Hurdle entry. “He’s improved 18lb in his time with us, which we’re incredibly proud of.

“For the prize fund alone, Kelso deserves a fantastic race - and I think they’re going to get one. It’s a lot of money and it looks like it’s going to attract an appropriately strong field.

“It will be an incredibly tough race to win, we know that, but Slugger deserves his chance. If he’s still improving, which we hope he is, then I think he’ll go very close. If his improvement has plateaued out, then he will still run his race. It’s just a great race to be going into with a horse that has a chance.”