Ryan Moore guides Delacroix to Eclipse win and puts Oisin Murphy in the shade

It was a frustrating and winless return to action for Oisin Murphy after a drink-driving conviction two days ago. The reigning champion jockey on the Flat and four more of the best riders in the business were confounded by the split-second brilliance of Ryan Moore aboard Delacroix, the 3-1 second-favourite, in the Group One Eclipse Stakes.

Moore said afterwards that he had flipped through four different plans in the course of the 10-furlong Eclipse, and Delacroix was last and trading at three-figure odds in running as Camille Pissarro, a stable companion of Delacroix at the Aidan O’Brien yard, cruised past on his outside, keeping Moore in a pocket as he did so.

Moore had two options with a quarter of a mile to run, neither particularly appealing. He could stay patient and hope for a gap, or pull around the field and surrender vital momentum and ground. He also had a second at most to make up his mind, and having opted to launch Delacroix down the outside, still had at least three lengths to find on Ombudsman, the 6-4 favourite, who had already struck for home under William Buick.

Delacroix was the only runner in the six-strong field without a previous Group One win to his name, but he produced a high-class turn of foot as he hit the uphill run to the line and was soon cutting remorselessly in to Ombudsman’s lead. Moore said afterwards that even he was not sure that he would get there “until 100 yards out”, but Delacroix was in front three strides from the line and had a neck to spare as he crossed it.

Ryan Moore (centre) after winning the Coral Eclipse with Delacroix Photograph: Steven Paston for The Jockey Club/PA

“I planned to go forward, a couple of us had the same thought and there was going to be three in a line, so I thought I’d come back and get out,” Moore told Racing TV. “Then I didn’t want to be wasting too much petrol on him, I had to come back and had to wait for Camille [Pissarro] to go, and so he had the last shot at them. But he showed a really good turn of foot, which is a hard thing to do at Sandown. I think he just won because he had a superior turn of foot on the day.”

Delacroix was the beaten favourite behind another O’Brien-trained runner, Lambourn, in last month’s 12-furlong Derby at Epsom, and is likely to stay at or possibly below the Eclipse trip of 10 furlongs for the remainder of the season. He is now top-priced at 9-2 for the International Stakes at York next month.

Oisin Murphy finished the Eclipse in third aboard Ruling Court. Photograph: Alan Crowhurst/Getty Images

Murphy, meanwhile, finished third aboard Ruling Court, the 2,000 Guineas winner, in the day’s feature race, and drew a blank from five rides on the card, including a close second on Jupiter Ammon in a 10-furlong handicap after leading well inside the final furlong.

Colin Keane took the main supporting race on the card, the Listed Coral Distaff over a mile, with an impeccably judged front-running ride on Andrew Balding’s Blue Bolt, but seemed resigned afterwards to missing the ride on Field Of Gold, the favourite, in the Group One Sussex Stakes at Goodwood on 30 July due to an apparent whip offence here on Friday.

Keane appeared to use his whip eight times on Windlord, a narrow winner of the Listed Gala Stakes, and if that is confirmed by the Whip Review Committee next week, the Juddmonte operation’s new retained rider in Europe can expect a two-week ban covering the majority of Glorious Goodwood as well as the King George VI Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot on 26 July.

“It’s my own fault,” Keane said. “It’s eight at home [in Ireland], but we just have to live with it. In a ding-dong battle, it just went out of my head.”