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It’s a shame about your feet, Drone. Still, nobody’s perfect.
Circumstances surrounding early runnings of the Derby are often shrouded in mystery but it seems that 15 winners of the race were making their first appearance on a racecourse.
Ten of these instances occurred between 1787 and 1809 and the last FTO winner was Blair Athol in 1864. Middleton (1825) and Amato (1838) won the Derby on their only racecourse appearance. I believe Merry Hampton (1887) was the last maiden to win the race.
Dragon Dancer was a recent maiden who came extremely close to winning the Derby. He was beaten a short-head by Sir Percy in 2006.
Amazingly, he remained a maiden until his four-year old career despite running eight times in his Classic season. The Derby performance was no flash in the pan either as he was a very respectable fourth in the Irish version next time out.
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