LOVING THE AMBIENTE

Friendly is 'chilled' and ready to fire

- DAVID YATES

HIS Derby defeat “made a man” of Ambiente Friendly, who bids to justify his hot-favourite status by going one better in the Irish version at the Curragh this afternoon.

It was feared a knife-edge temperament would prevent the James Fanshawe-trained colt, a four-and-a-half-length victor of Lingfield's Listed Derby Trial, from doing himself justice at Epsom.

But Ambiente Friendly, owned by 91-year-old Bill Gredley and his son Tim, kept his head amid the famous Derby-day atmosphere to finish second to favourite City Of Troy.

The winner runs in the Coral-Eclipse Stakes at Sandown on Saturday, so Ambiente Friendly's chief threat comes from City Of Troy's stablemate, Aidan O'Brien's Derby third Los Angeles.