Will Funnell and John Popely were among the Sussex riders in the thick of it as the Traxdata British Derby Meeting got underway at hickstead yesterday.

But it was Yorkshireman John Whitaker's 17-year-old son Robert who fired a telling salvo across the bows of senior riders.

The precocious teenager, who only returned on Monday from Hungary where he helped to win a team gold medal for Britain at the Junior European Championships on his father's former mount Virtual Village Randi, scored a four-timer on three other horses.

But despite his ambition to compete in Sunday's Peugeot Derby, Robert looks certain to be prevented from starting by his mother, Clare.

If he goes in the Derby, he forfeits the chance of a last tilt at next year's Junior Europeans, as he is not 18 until February 2001, and Clare is determined he should have the chance.

Robert's four Hickstead wins, all on mares, came in the Traxdata Chase on Gucci, the Australian Outback Young Riders Championship and the Thomas Bates 7 & 8-Year-Old Championship on Think Twice and the 1.40m.Open on Feria D'Etenclin.

"I was lucky in the Chase," admitted Robert. "I had to stop half way round while they re-built the course from a previous round. I think my time benefited from the re-start."

Robert had also helped to tune up the winner of the day's major event, the Derby Tankard, which went to Norwegian Geir Gulliksen on Calido.