A DERBY’S DERBY.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 19 July 1924, Page 11

A DERBY’S DERBY.

UMBRELLA PARADE. TWENTY YEARS ON. LONDON, June A The year 1924 will be memorable for more than the B.E.E. It is ihe year of Lord Derby’s Derby, and for the first, time since his ancestor the twelfth Earl established the great race one of his name has won the blue ribbon of the English turf. No wonder Lord Derby beamed with an all-embracing smile. No wonder that the King shook hands with him so heartily, and his rival sporting peers congratulated hint. .It took all of his, Lord Derby’s big physique to stand the onslaught of the mob of friends wanting to wring his hand. The spirit of the “Maid of the Oaks'—silc-h was the name hv which the wile of the 12th Earl was known — may well be smiling, too, at this long delayed tribute to her family's racing prowess and staying power.

But the weather! It is often in these latitudes unspeakable. But on this fourth of June it was out to do itworst. The cables will have told of the cohorts of Australians who went down, one party thirteen hundred strong—p’raps there lay the source of unlucky weather!—and New Zealand in its hundred or two. Some had t-he luck to take Lord Derby’s tip to back his horse, and that was certainly wanted to cheer in such a. downpour. One distinguished New Zealand general backed Tom Pinch, worse luck! If I’d been putting •something on, I certainly would have had some trust in a horse, with a name like (hat. for I’m old-fashioned enough to, like Dickens. But it is not mine to visit these frivolous and Eilysian fields in Surrey, but to record what is to he gathered from New Zealand friends who went there. They one and all declare it was worth everything to have gone and seen the great national event. Not even the Aveather and its attendant discomforts, nor the long struggle to getaway from the bebogged course, and a weary vigil, in some cases prolonged to two next morning, before getting home made them regret the day’s outing. The buses had the worst luck, for they were run on to the turf. It was soft- and quite sodc]en by the long continued rain of the last fortnight, when there have been exceptionally severe thunderstorms. Their Aveight made them sink heavily down into the grass, and by the end of the day they had almost, dug themselves in', whiie the people on top Avere all unconscious.'of what was going on beneath their vehicles. The Derby of this year, too, may be said to be memorable for the greatest procession of motor buses since the British army Ava-s rushed up to the defence of Ypres in 1914. Most of them Avere pirates, and they Avere gaily decorated with; the flags of the different Dominions from which their passengers hailed.

There was little moving about. It Avas an umbrella Derby, in fact an umbrella. parade, except that no one paraded more than they could help. As for the dresses Avhich had cost so much thought to the Avearers and cost to the fathers and husbands avlio had to foot the bill, they hid themselves from these June showers, which were so unlike soft summer shoAvers and were real tropical downpours. There AA-as no fashion parade, a dream of artistic delight on the lawn. Rather mackintosh clad mannequins they appeared, and fe-Av of these—-for fashionable shoes are not built for Epsom Heath at o\’er saturation point. So little did the people move about that the eroAvd appeared smaller than usual. . They huddled below umbrellas. One bright observer declares that there were more vromen there than eA-er in the history of the Derby. He went so far as to say, “1 never saw iso many women and girls at the Derby. T wonder Avhat the Avorld is coining to Tn twenty years’ time there’ll be nothing hut women at- the Derby!’’ What a. prospect for “twenty- years on.” But the race, Av’hat of it? Da.Av.son City aah.s favoured by lots of people and he led up the hill. St. Germans made none too good a start, and Pai memo aa3s actually last of getting off. The experts when they saw liow soon Sansovino took the lead thought U cstnn had let j-,is mount aet too far ahead, and prophesied hadlv of hi* performance. But Weston ‘knew best, aiTcl the lead lie took he held, and held Avell. Long before the shouthm of the winner’s name when he flashed past the post Lord Derby’s hand was beiim wrung. The bine ribbon was his. " It a\ as exciting and sporting racing that carried the crowd aavay unhcedim<them dist-omjort. But the moment came at hist Avhen they had to make a m°\-e Then it was discovered that the big five-ton buses Avere firmly planted- in the Heath and refused to nudge. The engines ran, f lic Avheels AA’ent round, hut Avouldn't grip the grea-sy ground. Indignity <,rindmnities, horse traction had to be called to their aid, and the buses were, after a long, long time, hauled out on to firmer giound, while their passenger load either waited patiently hv or tried to hnd other means of transport home. Most of those who -duck to their buses got hack to Trafalgar Square hv nine, or ten at night, but I did hear of unlucky ones who arrived miserably in toivn in the Avee sma’ ’oor.s.

The motorists who had the best of it were those in the little two-seaters. I hey dull, t get. bogged like the fiveton monster buses.

Ihero was some heartburnim-- one hears because of some early hiiaf buses jumpinji the claim on the racecourse of some of the Australian a.n<! Nc-w Zealand hoses. More will be heard of this tor the position had been allotted and paid for by the A. and N.Z. Agency, making the arrangements before this day. But in such weather and such ground possession proved ten points of the law. The early birds wouldn't budge, partly because those, with the real right to the stance couldn’t haul them out. So that was that!