The elderly owner-breeder of one of the leading hopes for the £1.5million Betfred Derby will be watching the race from his care home.
David Aykroyd and his wife Vimy are small-scale racehorse breeders from Yorkshire who are taking on the might of Coolmore and Godolphin in a David v Goliath battle for the richest prize in British horse racing.
Ten-time Derby winner Aidan O’Brien saddles three horses, led by Delacroix, while Charlie Appleby, twice winner of the race, is represented by the 2,000 Guineas winner Ruling Court.
Their biggest threat in the betting is the Aykroyds’ Pride Of Arras, trained by Ralph Beckett and is valued at 5/1 by some bookies, who burst onto the scene with an impressive win in the Dante Stakes at York, the most prestigious Derby trial.
In comparison to the vast worldwide breeding operations run by Coolmore and Godolphin, the Aykroyds keep six broodmares and have four horses in training. Pride Of Arras was the product of a €20,000 mating between their two-time winning mare Parnell’s Dream and stallion New Bay.
Vimy Aykroyd, 80, said: “We are enormously excited. His win in the Dante came as a bit of a surprise to all of us. We all hoped he would run well but he had only run once before in his life.
“I did have a runner in the Oaks a number of years ago but she didn’t do very well. One is hoping to win this time but the Derby can be a bit of a lottery. There are a lot of runners which can cause problems for everybody. He is going there with a good chance.
“It’s wonderful to get a runner in the Derby. We are very lucky to have kept our mares at such an extremely well run, efficient stud which is down the road from me.”
David Aykroyd had been involved with Robert Sangster in Ballydoyle years ago and became more seriously involved in breeding, with the help of nephew Patrick Cooper, 15 years ago when Fred Darling winner Puff delivered a first Group race success. He has been unable to share in the racetrack success of Pride Of Arras since developing dementia.
“It was Patrick who bought Pride Of Arras’s granddam from Coolmore privately and she had the dam of Pride Of Arras and so on and so forth,” added Vimy.
She went on: “They’ve got televisions at David’s care home and they will all watch it. His nephew is going to watch it with him so he will be all right. It’s a very good care home.
“He is definitely aware that he has a runner in the Derby but he’s just not well enough to be able to come to watch it at Epsom because he can’t walk. It would all be too much for him. He is much better off watching it on the television.
“I’ll be going with my daughters and step-daughters. I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”
