ON the contrary, the draw in the Derby may be more important than is generally accepted by the market. The uphill run from the stalls and the right turn after a furlong and a half means that, if you are drawn low and you want to gain a position, you have to use up some of your horse very early.

By contrast, if you are drawn high you could be shuffled back at that turn, and you could be wider than ideal or further back than ideal when you do start to turn left-handed.

Here are the stall numbers of the first five home in the Derby in the last 10 years:

12-2-11-3-8 (16 runners)

10-5-11-9-1 (12)

5-3-7-6-4 (9)

7-12-13-6-3 (13)

8-6-11-12-4 (12)

4-10-2-9-7 (12)

3-14-10-13-16 (16)

14-8-2-17-9 (17)

10-11-18-5-8 (18)

5-12-4-13-3 (13)

Findings? No Derby winner has emerged from stalls one or two in the last decade. Actually, only one horse drawn on the inside rail - Ocovango, who finished fifth in 2013 - and only three horses drawn one off the inside rail managed to finish in the first five in that time. That’s four places out of 50. That’s an 8% return from a representation of 14.5%.

The outside boxes have fared better. No horse drawn in either of the two outside boxes has won the Derby in the last 10 years, but 10 have managed to finish in the first five and six in the first three.

Even so, it is the middle that dominates. Three of the last 10 winners emerged from the centre stall and three more were drawn no more than two and a half stalls away from the centre.

Even in the 2012 renewal, when there were just nine runners, the winner Camelot emerged from stall five, right in the middle, while the four horses who emerged from the four stalls around him chased him home.

Conclusions? The middle is really where you want to be. And if you can’t have a middle draw, you want to be higher rather than lower.