Cole plans strategic withdrawal

Fear of a soft-ground Derby at Epsom on Saturday is causing trainer Paul Cole to consider diverting Strategic Prince to the King Edward VII Stakes at Royal Ascot.

The colt, eighth to Cockney Rebel in the 2,000 Guineas, hates give in the ground and Epsom received an inch and a half of rain over the weekend with more promised later this week.

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Strategic Prince's odds drifted to 41-1 on betting exchange Betfair on Tuesday night.

Cole said: "I will have a chat with his owner on Thursday but, even if he ran, he'd have little chance on soft going."

Coral came into line with other major firms when cutting Authorized to odds-on favourite. Ladbrokes predict that Frankie Dettori's mount may start even shorter than the 4-6 of Entrepreneur when he was fourth in 1997.

Positive exchange moves for Archipenko (into 13-1) and Eagle Mountain (into 17-1) seem to indicate that they will be part of Aidan O'Brien's line-up while the stable's Admiralofthefleet (out to 41-1) and Yellowstone (out to 109-1) seem destined to miss the race.

Marcus Tregoning's second favourite Aqaleem (8-1) yesterday repeated stablemate Sir Percy's final gallop prior to his Derby win last year when going to Lingfield and working on the Polytrack surface under Richard Hills.

Tregoning said: "Aqaleem is very fit and that was his last piece of proper work. We have had a lot of rain at home and the gallops are so soft they are really unsuitable to work him on."

DETTORI has been booked to ride Lawman, trained by Jean-Marc Beguigne, in Sunday's French Derby.

DERBY jockeys will wear yellow ribbons to highlight the search for Madeleine McCann, the little girl abducted from her holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal.