Ambiente Friendly and Callum Shepherd winning The William Hill Lingfield Derby Trial © Photo Healy Racing
Robert Havlin said it was “a lovely surprise” to be booked to ride leading Betfred Derby fancy Ambiente Friendly, replacing Callum Shepherd aboard the Epsom contender.
The James Fanshawe-trained colt was among the rank outsiders for the premier Classic until he ran riot in the Lingfield Derby Trial earlier this month.
He was partnered with aplomb by Shepherd on that occasion, but owners Bill and Tim Gredley have decided to replace him with the more experienced Havlin, who rode the second Group One winner of his career on Saturday when giving 22-1 shot Audience a fine front-running ride in the Lockinge Stakes at Newbury.
It will be Havlin’s third ride in the Derby, with the 50-year-old spending the majority of his career connected to the John Gosden yard as Frankie Dettori’s understudy.
“It was a lovely surprise to pick the ride up and obviously I’ve got a lot of sympathy for Callum, I’ve been in that situation myself, as have plenty of other people,” said Havlin.
“Unfortunately in this game it happens from the top to the bottom and somebody’s good luck is always someone else’s bad luck.
“My main interest now is to find out as much about the horse as possible before next Saturday.
“He’s a lovely horse, you can feel he’s got class about him. He takes hold of the bit, I know he runs in a ring bit, but it’s handy in a race of this nature because you can get a position.
“His profile is good, he’s ultra-progressive. He obviously needed the run in the Feilden (when fourth) like every Newmarket horse did at that meeting, but you’d have to be impressed with the way he came down the hill, cornered and then picked up when asked at Lingfield.
“He ticks a lot of boxes, he has less questions to answer than some, he ticked nearly every box in one day. He’s lightly-raced, a late-maturing type and his best days are still in front of him.”
Explaining the decision, Tim Gredley told Tattersalls: “It’s absolutely nothing more than it’s a big day and we wanted to use someone with a lot of experience.
“Robert has ridden a few winners for us recently and is fresh off winning a Group One at the weekend so his confidence is high, it’s nothing more than that.
“Callum has been brilliant and will still ride our horses – if he wants to.
“It’s a big day for us and we wanted to make a call that we had someone who had dealt with this situation a lot of times, so that is the reason we went with Robert.
“He hadn’t ridden him before, but strangely enough he was meant to ride him a couple of times at home but couldn’t for whatever reason.
“I don’t think he’s a complicated horse and once he’s away from Newmarket he will be fine. I’m hoping it will be a good fit.”
