Racing: Double delight for O'Brien amid tragedy

The Derby: Ballydoyle stable take first and second place but feat is marred by Coshocton's horrific fall near the finish

The twin impostors rode hand in hand here yesterday. In a dramatic, tragic climax to the 223rd Derby, Aidan O'Brien provided the first two home as High Chaparral beat Hawk Wing to give their trainer his second successive Blue Riband. But seconds before the horses flashed across the line, Coshocton, then running fourth, broke a leg and crashed to the turf before the horrified crowds.

The reception given to gutsy High Chaparral and his rider, Johnny Murtagh, as they returned to the winner's circle was understandably muted as, just 20 yards away, the screens went up round the stricken Coshocton and jockey Philip Robinson. The horse, whose near foreleg had given way at the knee, was swiftly and mercifully given a lethal injection. Happily, Robinson, who had been stretchered into an ambulance with an oxygen mask in place, was only winded.

O'Brien, 32, is rewriting racing's record books as swiftly and effectively as the magnificent colts he produces from the legendary Ballydoyle training establishment in Co Tipperary cover the ground. Yesterday's one-two was the first since Dick Carver sent out My Love to beat his stablemate Royal Drake in 1948 and was the Irishman's 16th European Classic winner since Classic Park set the juggernaut rolling in the Irish 1,000 Guineas just five years ago.

Although High Chaparral, 7-2, and Hawk Wing, the 9-4 favourite, finished in the wrong order as far as the market was concerned, the writing on the wall had been in the winner's favour since rain drenched the Epsom Downs during the week and turned the ground soft. Stable jockey Mick Kinane, who rode Galileo to victory 12 months ago, stuck to Hawk Wing, leaving Murtagh to pick up his second Derby win in three years, after Sinndar.

As the field of 12 broke from the stalls to the traditional roar from a moderate crowd on a chilly, grey afternoon, Jamie Spencer on the Godolphin second string, Moon Ballad, seized the initiative at a brisk pace, accompanied early on by outsiders Frankie's Dream and Tholjanah. Moon Ballad, a natural front-runner, still held the call on the sweep downhill to Tattenham Corner and into the straight. The Ballydoyle pair made ground down the steep incline, Hawk Wing travelling easily, as Coshocton joined issue with the leader.

Murtagh drove the stoutly bred High Chaparral, who races in Michael Tabor's colours, to the front with well over a quarter of a mile to run and although he was shadowed by his comrade-in-arms, still apparently on the bridle, when push came to shove in the final brief but testing surge uphill, the favourite's stamina and resolution were found wanting. The Woodman colt reached High Chaparral's girths but made no further inroads, and the winner – brave, determined and classy – strode away to give his sire Sadler's Wells, too, his second successive Derby win. Hawk Wing may have been an unlucky runner-up in the 2,000 Guineas, but he was beaten fair and square here.

"Everything went just about perfect," Murtagh said, "even though the plan was that I was supposed to be handy from the off. The horse didn't jump that well from the stalls so I followed Mick all the way, until about five out I kicked on down the outside to make his stamina come into play. I gave him a couple of slaps coming into Tattenham Corner and when I asked him to go he pricked his ears for a moment but the more I asked him the more he found. When I got to the front before two out he responded strongly when Hawk Wing came to him and when Mick didn't get by me in two strides I knew he wouldn't and nothing else would. He loved the ground and the trip and ran his heart out. he's a very special horse."

Kinane can have few complaints; he is a team player and the first of his two Derby winners, Commander-in-Chief, was a second string. "Mick probably knows how I feel now," added Murtagh. "Some have said the Derby is not the race it was, but believe me, it is the race that every jockey wants to win. To win it once is great, to win it twice, just unbelievable."

O'Brien, quiet and modest in victory or defeat but as steely a competitor as any, deflected credit, as is his wont. "I really have very little to do with it," he said. "It is so much of a team effort from the day the foals are born and they come in to the yard and we all look after them.

"These are two very, very good horses who have been trained with the Derby in mind from a long way out. Perhaps in their final preparation one of them might have told us that the Derby was not for them, but they have been training superbly since they last ran and to have first and second was marvellous... I really could not have said beforehand which was going the be the better."

The targets lined up for the pair before yesterday had been the Irish Derby, over 12 furlongs again, and the Eclipse Stakes, over 10. High Chaparral will now be deployed to follow in Galileo's footsteps at the Curragh and Hawk Wing against his elders at Sandown.

In their duel, the pair pulled 12 lengths clear of their rivals. To his enormous credit Moon Ballad kept up his gallop to retain third place, a length ahead of Jelani, who belied his 100-1 odds with a tremendous surge into fourth, ahead of Fight Your Corner, Where Or When and Naheef, Frankie Dettori's 11th Derby loser.

Poor Coshocton, though, was making a fight of the minor placings when the first intimation of disaster came as he faltered before the furlong marker. His shocking end was the first Derby fatality on the course since 1962, when King Canute broke a leg and was destroyed.

How they finished

1. HIGH CHAPARRAL J Murtagh 7-2

2. Hawk Wing M J Kinane 9-4 fav

3. Moon Ballad J P Spencer 20-1

4. Jelani F Lynch 100-1

5. Fight Your Corner K Darley 8-1

6. Where Or When J Fortune 66-1

Also ran: 9-2 Bandari, 5-1 Naheef, 14-1 Tholjanah, 25-1 Louisville, 28-1 Coshocton (fell), 100-1 Frankies Dream.

12 ran. Won by: 2, 12.

Winner trained by: A O'Brien (Ballydoyle).