Vodafone Derby-winning stable groom John Kennedy, who hails from Didcot, has told of how Sir Percy fulfilled his dream by landing the Epsom Classic.

Speaking after parading Sir Percy at yesterday's media open day at trainer Marcus Tregoning's Kingwood House Stables at Lambourn, Kennedy said: "It is every stable lad's dream to win the Derby.

"It is what everyone goes into the game for. You never better your first one even if you win it again.

"For a horse to be bought for 16,000gns as a yearling and win the Derby is a fairy-tale."

And yet when Kennedy sought career advice at St Birinus School, Didcot, a life in racing hadn't even entered his mind.

"I wanted to go into the Navy to travel the world," he said.

"But when I went to see the careers teachers they said 'you are too small to go into the Navy, have you thought about racing'."

But he was told he was too small and after it was suggested he try racing, he got a job with trainer Verley Bewicke at Chilton, near Didcot, and soon found he was in his element.

"I just took to it straightaway," he said. "I learnt to ride very quickly and I was riding out within a week."

He spent a year there, but was too small for Bewicke's National Hunt horses, and so moved on to Henry Candy's Flat racing stables at Kingstone Warren yard, near Wantage, riding ten winners from 300 rides.

His first winner came after 44 rides, aboard Vernon Street in a six-furlong handicap at Windsor, and he went on to ride ten winners for Candy from 300 rides.

He then had spells in France, Italy, Germany and Japan sandwiched around being travelling head lad to Mark Usher at Foxhill in Wiltshire.

Kennedy, who lives at Tregoning's yard with his wife Angie, was also head lad at Fulke Johnson Houghton's Blewbury stables, near Didcot, for five years before joining Tregoning four and a half years ago, and Kennedy was lucky enough to take over Sir Percy last October after his former groom joined Godolphin.

He took over Sir Percy last October, and was overjoyed when the son of Mark Of Esteem pipped Dragon Dancer by a short-head under Martin Dwyer in Saturday's Epsom Classic.

"I went mad and lost my voice," said Kennedy. "I was running round like something of Magic Roundabout."