THE two horses to take out of the Derby, besides the winner obviously, were Saxon Warrior and Hazapour.

Nothing went right for Saxon Warrior. It started two days before the race with his draw in stall one, accentuated by the fact that stalls one and two were removed slightly from stalls three to 12, because of the fact that the stalls are in groups of 10. Then he stumbled slightly on leaving the stalls.

Then he had the door closed on him by Dee Ex Bee when Ryan Moore wanted to go forward at the three-furlong marker.

It is stretching it to say that Aidan O’Brien’s colt would have won without all of that, but it is not stretching it to say that he probably would have finished closer.

Perhaps he didn’t handle the cambers as well as you hoped he would, perhaps he found the occasion all a bit too much. He was far less experienced going into the race than the three horses who finished in front of him.

You couldn’t say that he didn’t stay though, he seemed to run all the way to the line, and you would love to see him redeem his reputation at the Curragh in three weeks’ time.

Hazapour is fully deserving of another chance too. He looked a likely winner when he hit the front, travelling strongly, on the run to the two-furlong marker, at which point he traded at 2/1 in-running, but he just didn’t get home. He just didn’t see out the 12-furlong trip.

As well as that, he was never far off the leaders in a race that was run at a fast pace and in which the hold-up horses were at an advantage. Runner-up Dee Ex Bee raced in fifth, fourth-placed Saxon Warrior raced in sixth, winner Masar and third-placed Roaring Lion raced further back. Hazapour raced up just behind the pace, disputing third place with The Pentagon. That wasn’t an advantage, given how the race panned out.

More than that, though, 10 furlongs is probably his trip. It was interesting that, after he won the Derrinstown trial, Dermot Weld said that the Shamardal colt had shown so much pace, he thought about running him in the Amethyst Stakes on the same day over a mile instead.

He doesn’t hold an entry in the Eclipse, but he wouldn’t be out of place in that race, should connections decide that he was worth the supplementary entry fee. Even if he has a short break now though, all the top 10-furlong races are open to him, the Juddmonte International and the Irish Champion Stakes and the Champion Stakes. He could be an under-rated horse now.