How to train a Derby winner

This weekend sees the most valuable and the most gruelling event in British flat racing - the Epsom Derby. Saturday's runners have been trained to the peak of their fitness to win £710,000 in prize money plus potential earnings of £10m at stud. But the science of training a winner is inexact and intuitive. "There are at least 100 different ways to train a horse for this race," says Simon Dow, vice-chairman of the Epsom Trainers Association, "There's no manual."

The Derby is for three-year-old colts only, and between the end of the two-year-olds' season and the start of Derby preparations these equine young teenagers mature into youths - and are changing rapidly, physically and emotionally.

If each horse needs individual treatment, there is at least a common rhythm. Over the winter, horses do little more than extremely

gentle aerobic exercise, most of which consists of walking, much of it along roads. From the end of January, as soon as the weather permits, training begins in earnest with the routine punctuated by the recognised Derby trials at Chester, Lingfield and York.

While the exact training schedule varies from day to day depending on the temperament and condition of the horses, a typical gallops session is between 40 and 90 minutes during which a horse does two sets of 6.5 furlongs with a rest in between. Some trainers like to gallop their charges in single file, others run them two, three or even four abreast.

Improvements in the science of training horses have largely mirrored human experience. The emphasis is now firmly on quality, not quantity, with short, sharp sessions in which the horses will either canter, gallop and sprint in various combinations depending on their condition and where they are in their training cycle.

Just as human athletes rarely practise