Oxx - different ball game for Zanughan John Oxx is one of only three trainers in the last 11 years to have wrestled the Derrinstown Stud Derby Trial at Leopardstown away from Aidan O'Brien and will try to do so again with Zanughan. Oxx won the race with the great Sinndar in 2000 before he followed up at Epsom, and with subsequent Irish Derby winner Alamshar in 2003. The only other non-O'Brien-trained winners in that time are David Wachman's Fracas (2005) and Dermot Weld's Casual Conquest (2008). With names like Galileo, High Chaparral and Dylan Thomas on the roll of honour, it is unquestionably the key Derby trial run in Ireland and only serious Classic contenders need apply. Zanughan has only had two runs this season, having been unraced at two, and given Oxx is not one to call his geese as swans, the Azamour colt must be respected. "He had a very good first run so we were expecting him to be hard to beat the second time and he won nicely enough," said Oxx. "Obviously this is a different ball game on Sunday, it's a big increase in class but we thought we'd put him in and let him take his chance. "He had a few little setbacks last year and he went home so I didn't see him too much last year but it was nothing serious. He would have benefited from a bit of time anyway. We hope he'll run well." O'Brien fires three bullets this year in a bid to continue his extraordinary record in the Group Two contest. Ballydoyle's main hope appears to be Recital, a Group One winner as a juvenile but beaten into third at odds-on when making his seasonal return in the Ballysax Stakes. He is joined by stablemates Memphis Tennessee and Regent Street, a surprise second in the Ballysax over Sunday's course and distance. A seven-runner field is completed by Wachman's Giant Step, the Paul Deegan-trained Best Hello and Rich Tapestry from the Weld stable.
