This year’s Derby at Epsom is being run in honour of legendary jockey Lester Piggott, who died on Sunday at the age of 86.

Piggott became synonymous with Britain’s biggest flat race way before his record ninth win aboard Teenoso in 1983.

That victory came two years after master trainer Michael Stoute won the Derby for the first time with the ill-fated Shergar, who was later kidnapped from stud and held for ransom before being killed when the operation went wrong.

It’s 41 years since Shergar’s 1981 victory and Stoute is still going strong as he saddles Saturday’s Derby favourite Desert Crown, who comes into the premier Classic unbeaten in two starts.

A winner of a maiden at Nottingham by five and a half lengths on his only start as a two-year-old, Desert Crown was an impressive winner of Britain’s main Derby trial, the Group Two Dante Stakes at York, and the usually reticent Stoute has made no secret of the esteem in which he holds his runner.

With five Derby wins under his belt, Stoute knows what type of horse is needed to win one of the biggest races in the world and when he says in the build-up that Desert Crown “will not have to find too much improvement to win”, you can take it as read that he likes his horse’s chance.

When it comes to the jockeys riding in this year’s race, well they all have a long way to go if they are to come close to matching Piggott’s achievements, with only Frankie Dettori and Ryan Moore having more than one Derby win to their name.

Those two world-class riders have both won the race twice and they get the leg up on two of Desert Crown’s biggest dangers.

Dettori, who was successful on Authorized in 2007 and Golden Horn in 2015, rides Irish challenger Piz Badile.

He is trained by top trainer Aidan O’Brien’s son Donnacha and won the Group Three Ballysax Stakes – one of Ireland’s leading trials – on his last start, with the fact Dettori has jocked off Piz Badile’s usual partner Gavin Ryan a sure sign that he is well fancied.

Moore will not have had to go out of his way to get his Derby ride as he is retained by Coolmore, owners of Stone Age. Second favourite for the race, he won his trial at Leopardstown by five lengths and represents Aidan O’Brien, who has won the race a record eight times.

The two valuable contests on the undercard are both Group Three contests and Bashkirova should run well in the Princess Elizabeth Stakes, a race restricted to fillies and mares.

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The four-year-old was a good second on her seasonal reappearance at Goodwood and will be ridden by the in-form Tom Marquand, who won a race in the International Jockeys’ Championship aboard Invincible Missile at Happy Valley in December.

It will be a surprise if Modern News fails to win the Group Three Diomed Stakes. He is improving with every run and was an easy winner last start.

Meanwhile, Silvestre de Sousa is keen to return to Hong Kong for a stint this winter and his best chance on the card comes in the hugely competitive 15-runner handicap that opens the card.

The Brazilian is aboard the lightly raced Nolton Cross, who has not finished outside the first two in his past three starts.