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Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6992, 19 August 1929, Page 4

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of people on Epsom Downs on June 5 last caught not so much as a glimpse of the Derby, nor any of the races' for that matter, and most of them won’t mind in the least, opines a London writer on the morning of that day of days. Sixty-six years ago our grandfathers and grandmothers also went to Epsom Downs in their thousands, and worried not at all if they failed to see the Derby won and lost. It was Derby Day just the same, and they gathered there for much the same reason as countless others will do today. Sixty-six years ago the stay-at-home backer was lucky if he knew that Kettledrum had won two hours after the horse had passed the post. Still the Same You, gentle reader, •with a “dollar” on Hunter’s Moon, perhaps, or Mr. Jinks, will know whether your money is good or bad at about five minutes past three. The Derby today is at three o’clock. Epsom Downs are the same today as they were in ISCI, _ but —“we moderns!” P.ead what this London newspaper had to say on June 8 of that year. Fancy waiting for a pigeon! “Those who have been at a theatrical fancy fair, and played at ‘My Aunt Sally’ with Paul Bedford and Buckstone as master of the ceremonies, on the half-crown scale, must ‘droop and turn aside,’ like another Wild Dayrell, when they get among the coarse professors of this art on the hill. Still, there are ‘fields which may be won,’ though the prizes may not be pincushions and penny whistles. "Does the Epsom pleasure-seeker

want to shoot—there are always bows and arrows ready for him, and he can sate his vengeance on the pasteboard object of his political antipathies. “One year he had General Haynau in effigy, the Emperor of all the Russians, pore et fils, for two or three together, and more recently he has been occupied in riddling the King of Naples with his archery or his rifle tube. The Fun of the Fair “Does he rover the fancy, and the memory of a Young Dutch Sam and Belcher, ho has only to stand under a platform or round an extempore ring, and he may see two ‘roughs’ in thenwhite apparel countering and giving uppercuts to his heart’s delight. “Does he desire to gain the applause of a mob on his graceful return to the metropolis, he can appear as a party which we saw on Friday last, with dolls stuck in their hats, and, driver and conductor included, all wearing enormous artificial wax noses, through which they uttered inarticulate gorilla sounds. "If three of these latter could have told off more than the name of the winner it would have been quite as much as the bargain; and, in fact, at least two-thirds of the racegoers never buy a card, and regard the whole as a sort of village feast. "The gingergread horses at the stabs have just as much real interest for them as the best three-year-old that was ever saddled in the Heathcote paddock. "This latter arrangement, coupled with the preliminary canters, has given

Memories of Famous English Classic in Other Days—Gingerbread Horses on Epsom Downs in 1861 —Thousands of People go to Epsom Downs and Never See the Race Run ! Days of Reckless Plungers Have Gone —House of Derby has had Only Two Wins in Great Race

a liveliness to the Derby which it did not possess in the days when the saddling and the start took place in the Warren, and Bill Scott, Chifney, Sam and John Day, Darling, and all the old school of jockeys were to be seen slipping across the hill on their hacks with their saddles strapped, Newmarket fashion, behind them as soon as they had been at scale. “People are forgetting those days now, but there is still a strong party which declared that the old course was better than the new, and that the facilities of pa.rade and seeing all round do not quite justify the change. Very Snappy! "Whether this is an improvement or not will always be a moot point; but there can be no dispute about the Wheatstone mode of spreading the result from one end of the kingdom to another in two hours, instead of leaving people in the far north in the agonies of expectation for upward of eighty. “Pigeons, which were trained for weeks before by flights of different lengths over the ground, used to bring the tale with unerring accuracy to the metropolis, and still a few of them may be seen eddying about after the fatal numbers have been put up, as if uncertain of their dovecot bearings. Pigeon Pie "Many of them got shot for the sake of the information, and the prospective pie on the road; and we once remember, three weeks after, finding one with its leg broken in an orchard, with Amato’ tucked under its left wing.

“The wires have, however, pretty well superseded this private intelligence, which enabled so many, in a double sense, to ‘pigeon’ speculative neighbours who had no chance of hearing earlier intelligence than the mailguards or newspapers could give. "The window of the Press has long been the fountain head of intelligence, and whether it be a Derby, a university boat race, or a ‘battle of Farnborough,’ its sleepless eye is the first from which the intelligence will be flashed over the metropolis. Red-letter Day • "As regards race meetings generally, little morsels of tissue paper modestly gummed to the panes suffice the public requirements; but on the Derby, the St. Lcger, the Oaks, the Chester Cup, and a few other red-letter turf days, the honour of the broad placard is assigned to the momentous issue on which the great speculator, with his £20,000 book —whose whole existence is devoted to ‘getting round’ —and the baker’s boy, with his shilling, have experienced an equally confident opinion, and backed it into the bargain. "Only twice do we remember the result coming wrong; but alas, on one of those occasions we had taken £SO to 10s about The General, and we felt mortified enough when we saw his name erased, and another go up in his stead.” Derby First Run in 1780 There is a glamour in the Derby that no other race in the world holds. From its inception in 1780, when Sir Charles Bunbury’s Diomed ran away from a field of eight, up to today, the

race which lias become the greatest classic of the world has ever had more than a touch of the romantic. Fortunes have been won and lost on it. Who, has not heard of Hermit’s year, for instance, the year that brought to an inglorious end the period known as the Hastings era? The Marquess of Hastings never stopped laying against Mr. Henry Chaplin’s Hermit, Up to the actual day of the race Hermit was a doubtful starter. He was regarded as having broken down. Snow fell on that memorablo Derby Day of 1867, and when the patched-up Hermit won the race the Marquess of Hastings was a brokqn man. There was more than mere racing rivalry between Henry Chaplin, the great squire, and the marquess, for one of the most romantic love episodes of history hung on their acquaintanceship. Both loved the same girl, and Chaplin married her. The plunging era has gone. In the old days the winter Derby books of the leviathan backers and bookmakers held wagers that would make the bets of today look paltry. A Farmer’s Luck The race has not always fallen to the aristocrats and wealthy patrons of the turf, though it must be admitted that they are in the majority. Occasionally a commoner has the luck to nominate a colt that proves to be the best of his year. Such a one was Mr. Ben Irish’s Papyrus, the winner of 1923. Mr. Irish was a sturdy yeoman farmer, with a very small string of horses. Yet among them was Papy-

rus, and he reached the height of his ambition that Derby Day of six years ago, when to the plaudits of half a million voices he led his colt back to weigh, in—the proudest moment of his life. Mr. Irish made a grave mistake, however, in his later enthusiasm. He allowed his horse to go to America to run on a dirt track against Zev, the crack tliree-year-old of the States. They ran at Belmont Park for a big stake, and Papyrus was beaten. Royal Victories The late King Edward won the Derby in 1909 with Minoru. He had previously succeeded as the Prince of Wales with Persimmon in 1896, and Diamond Jubilee in 1900. Few amateurs have ridden in the Derby, but, Mr. Geo. Thursby finished second twice on John o’ Gaunt in 1904, and on Picton two years later. It has become a custom of recent years for owners of prominent Derby candidates to be invited as guests at such interesting functions as the Derby dinner at the London Press Club. Prominent jockeys, too, join in these afterdinner talks, and in such an atmosphere, of course, “tips” are so plentiful as to be- confusing. Lord Derby, for more years than he would care to remember, has anticipated the victory of his colours in the great classic that bears his name, and yet only one victory stands out in his colours —that of Sansovino in 1924. In fact, in the long history of the race, the House of Derby can only claim one other success, and that in 1787, when Sir Peter Teazle won for a forebear of the present earl.