Epsom Downs

Aidan O'Brien keeps chalking up the Derby winners, not necessarily with his apparent first string ridden by Ryan Moore but the pair can team up to winning effect again this year with BENVENUTO CELLINI. He's proved his stamina and did so at Chester, which strengthens the chance that he will handle this idiosyncratic track, but it must be said that soft ground would give him more to prove and how much rain has fallen on Thursday and Friday could be of major relevance. O'Brien second string Pierre Bonnard is feared most based on the abundant promise of his major 1m2f wins as a 2yo, which has not yet been fulfilled but his latest start suggests that he is heading back in the right direction. That race was won in last-gasp fashion by James J Braddock, who can raise his game even further over this longer trip, as can the Lingfield Derby Trial winner Maltese Cross and they are both serious each-way contenders. The principal British-trained hope, though, appears to be Item who is one of the least experienced horses in the race but the only unbeaten one. He swatted aside Action and Christmas Day (today's O'Brien third and fourth string) in the prestigious Dante at York over an extended 1m2f but he's not the nailed-on certainty to relish 1m4f which Benvenuto Cellini is.[Richard Austen]