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English King thrilling Ed Walker ahead of Derby date

Trainer Ed Walker is struggling to contain his excitement after his Investec Derby favourite English King enjoyed a first spin under Frankie Dettori on Wednesday morning.

The Newcastle maiden winner emerged as a major contender for the premier Classic with a dominant display in the Lingfield Derby Trial earlier in the month - and is now the clear favourite following Monday's announcement that Dettori will take over in the saddle at Epsom.

Following a Tuesday evening dinner between Walker, Dettori and English King's owner Bjorn Nielsen - who saw the charismatic jockey deliver him a third Gold Cup aboard the mighty Stradivarius at Royal Ascot last week - the popular Italian was on board the son of Camelot for his final piece of serious work ahead of his date with destiny on July 4.

Walker said: "Today is 10 days out from the Derby, which is always when I would do my last proper piece of work with a horse, and he worked very well. Frankie came in and had a sit on him, and everything went smoothly. He came out of it good and seems in good shape.

"Frankie came down last night and had dinner with Bjorn and me, which was fun. We spoke about Stradivarius for about three hours - and English King for about five minutes!

"You know what Frankie is like - he's quite a calming influence. It's great to have him onside - he's got such a wealth of experience and he loved the horse."

"I wasn't really nervous about this piece of work, because he's not a horse that you need or expect to see blasting clear of his lead horse in Frankel-Bullet Train style. I was lucky enough to see that horse work a number of times and I always feared that if that's what it took to have a Group One horse, I probably never would have one!

"This guy only does what he has to do, and the thing I was most nervous about, with Frankie coming down, was he might not impress Frankie, but he loved the horse.

"Frankie rode him from his stable and back to his stable - he really wanted to get inside the horse's head and understand him, which is a mark of Frankie's professionalism. He rode him for well over an hour, and they got on great.

"His feedback was kind of as I expected - he loves the way he moves, he's an exceptionally athletic horse and he loved his personality. He's a playful horse who switches off and conserves energy. He is very straightforward, but has that Montjeu twinkle in his eye.

"He'll have another piece of work early next week, all being well. Then it's just a case of freshening him up and get him feeling as well as he possibly can for the big day."