The troubled passage endured through the Derby by Wings Of Eagles is mirrored in the previously troubled career of his journeyman jockey, Padraig Beggy, who must have feared his days in the saddle could be over when he was banned for a year in Australia at the end of 2014. Entertaining company, as well as a manifestly talented rider, Beggy talked his way into additional trouble after a positive test for cocaine, providing not one but two false explanations before accepting that he had deliberately taken the drug.
For a jockey who had been kicking around for a decade or so without making much of an impact, there is no guarantee of being able to come back from that kind of self-inflicted disaster. That Beggy has been able to do so is testament to his own determination but also to the willingness of the winning trainer, Aidan O’Brien, to give a man a second chance.
Related: Wings Of Eagles stuns rivals to win the Derby as 40-1 outsider
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