THE ENGLISH DERBY.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 6269, 24 July 1907, Page 6

THE ENGLISH DERBY.

MANY AUSTRALASIANS i PRESENT. FACTS AND IMPRESSIONS. (By Pierce C. Frccili.) ' ' LONDON, June 5. To hit London alid miss tho English Derby would be unthinkable. Might as well tour Egypt and skip the pyramids! New Zealanders and- Australians were plentiful as littlo mushrooms on Epsom Downs to-day. They didn't cut much figure amongst tho two hundred and odd thousand people who happened to be present, but one came across little "bunches” of them hidden amongst tho multitude now and again, and glad smiles of recognition fluttered over tho arena as colonial recognised colonial in the striving press. A babel of tongues demonstrated a congress of tho nations. Tho gathering was distinctly cosmopolitan. Tho Ficnch were present in surprising numbers; “Ammurika" and Canada permeated tho great roar of coster converse with nasal intonations; oven Russia was contributory in a quiet, modest, and unostentatious way to this classic festivity. There was little of colour of brightness about the dems-e----packed throng. Unliko the Melbourne Cup and our leading New Zealand fix* tu:es, the Derby is not recognised as a dress parade, 'if you want to see femininity in all its glory you must go to tho Uaks. GATHERING OF COMMONERS. On Epsom Downs, although tho iving is an interested onlooker, it is the commonalty which is out for an airing. This is of a verity tho meeting place of “all sorts and conditions of men." Anything more unlike a colonial race mob it would bo impossible to find. The crowd does not arrive in orderly procession, pay its way in at the gates, and got drafted into position by precise officialdom. No, it is higgledy-piggledy from start to finish. It is a rabble in the road and a rabble in tho field, but a more police-fearing and law-abiding rabble tho'wo rid knows nought of. In the first case tho Derby is a “dead-head" institution. Epsom Downs is a common; always has been a common, always will be a common. Its habitues have behind their _ occupancy tho treasured privilege of ‘Time immemorial." To revoke that would bo to necessitate a call for the regulars and tho reading -of tho Riot’; Act. You cannot tamper with British I institutions. Any innovation of the pay,] pay, pay variety would bo as fiercely !■ i csonted by tho “sport” in his four-in- j hand as by the coster in his donkey cart. Thus it transpires that the greatest of the English, classics can be witnessed “on .the nod." WHAT THE COLONIALS DO. Of course if you are a colonial and want to “put on side," or have no taste for humble joys and .humble toils, you will pay. a guinea to go into the stands, and an additional half-a-sover-eigu for admission to the saddling paddock. Thousands do that because they don't know any better. The guinea aforesaid gives you tho piivil ge of mounting a grandstand which would be sniffed at with contempt by any selfrespecting patron of a third-rate hack race meeting in New Zealand, and craning violently over a forest of hats in hopeless expectancy of seeing a race. It gives you the privilege of standing on. tip-too on a “lawn" which could be covered by two respectable cambric handkerchiefs and hearing the odds—odds!—yelled in your ears by scores of bellowing bookies. These are the principal privileges which your guinea gives. You cannot seo the race at the beginning because the starting post is behind tho trues up on the hills. You cannot seo the, race in the second stage because the horses arc hidden behind the crowd which blackens tho course at Tattenham Corner. You cannot see the race at tho third stage because the horses have rushed violently, down a steep place—steep enough to make a broncho-buster's hair curl—clean out of sight in a hollow in the course. You cannot seo the race at tho last stags—as tho contestants coaio struggling up a steep, hill to thei winning post—because your neighbours 1 are leaping in the air and -throwing their portable possessions about in a frenzy of excitement, and landing' with great violence on your toes without cho formality of pardon. A WORD TO THE SCEPTICAL.

My readers who have not witnessed a I Derby, and who have not seen Epsom ! ! Downs will no doubt think that my de- '1 scription has other stimulant than ver-l 3 acity. No doubt they have pictured to! i themselves as I have often done, a great 1 oval with rare gre6n turf in the midst * of parklands flecked with noble trees,; < and equine giants splendid in symmetry J and spotless in ancestry stretched out In i splendid contest for the riband of. the ; < turf. Sad to shatter the fond illusion, 1 - but the truth must out. Epsom Downs 1 is a gorsc-strewn hill, and the Derby 1 course a stretch of sward—more crooked \ than a dog's hind leg—with one sharp, i dangerous bend, into a long and tiro*' < some straight, falling steeply into a j * hollow, and then climbing painfully uo to the post, and finishing in the saddling | paddock at the top. Anybody in Aug- '• tralasia suggesting a similar site for a ; racecourse would bo remanded for ined- . 1 ical examination. Yet racing has been . going on here for one hundred and j. l twenty-seven, years, and, in all human I ‘ probability it will—unless the Conser- ! vatiyo sporting spirit of England under- I goes an extraordinary change—go on ; 3 statu quo for another century and al, quarter. ‘ AT THE DERBY" EIGHTY YEARS. One interesting item in connection j with the present Derby is the complaint ’ of . its . eldest patron 'that the doctors havo this year forbidden his attendance. '■ For eighty years in succession Robert | I n earle has been present at the running i 1 of the Derby, but in siis ninety-first • year he is obliged to sit at, his place i of business —in-which h© still takes an > 1 active part—and watch. tlm procession T ; •o by. Motors, are taking the place of , •"’o old-time stages, and the costers and their "donahs" recreant to their old : donkey loves often patronise the electric 'bus. "'Tisn’t the Derby it used to be eighty years ago I" Yet some of the distinctive features remain. „SOME OF THE SIGHTS. THe common us strewn with gipsy ioitnnoAlcllcr S with their '*kids" and stoves and *beds inside and poultry running underneath; dirtyUatless, importunate female imposters crowd round tho carriages to tell the "lady's fortune"; ragged tan-faced men with merry eyes and ready quips bowl up ,and cheekily ask for money to buy beer. Side-shows and cheating devices innumerable; beer tents full of men, and women carrying babies; drunkards, male i and female, a*ways hatless, "on tho ' turf," asleep, lying on their backs, arms * far flung, mouths open, horrible; everywhere the popping of corks, the cracking ..of jokes, sounds of jest, mirth; ribaldry, horse-play, the shrill hilarity of women, and the boisterous mirth of men. Open • •courtships: Girlis reposing in gentlemen's arms and .taking "a little somethin? ilight." Eat! i r ou should just j see these people eat—and drink. RETURNING FROM THE DERBY. As soon as the classic race is run there is a sudden exodus from the -field, and from that hour onward. tho homeward rout begins. Ancient Epsom, with- its quaint houses and narrow streets, witharrar a recrudescence of its old-time glories. Four-in-hands full l of heads and lega and arms go past at a handgallop, a borrowed musician blowing Srantic discords fiorn. the historic horn; frantic costers belabour tired, diminutive, over-laden dohk ys into a semblance of sneed; tho toot, toot, toot, of motors is heard on every hand; cabs driven tandem with a postillion on the lead horso make desperate efforts to obtain probed-nee; brake, char-a-banc, and ’bus loads of "mixed passengers" go galloping by, surging and yelling, as ail possessed *. bicyclists by tbe hundreds swaving and swirling amidst the tor- i tuous mass in imminent peril of their |

lives; thousands walking with their faces to the city, destination Lord knows where; tho waysido "pubs" full of clamorous customers, .men, and women carrying children; every now and again tho ejection with violence of some untoward guest who had tried to ring the changes on his dirty “face/* Rain, persistent, commences to fall on man and woman and on child. There is iij shelter anywhere. No vcrmulahs in the village streets, the parks and paddocks are characteristically shut oil by walls bestrewn with broken bottles; thero is no rest for.the Derby remnants unless they are lucky to be drunk enough to lie down in the trough and ‘'sleep it off." So the hapless thousands trudge and trudge and trudge in the pitiless rain with their faces to the cloud-darkened city seventeen weary miles away! This was an event in whicn 1 didn't wait to see tho finish I INDIGNANT COLONIALS. When I got back to my hotel I was soon surrounded by indignant colonials. “Call that a raco meeting," they said. "Why, wo never spent such a day in our lives!" .... "No room to swing a cat!" . . . "Nothing like the Melbourne Cup." . . . "Did you ever ee© such a course?" . . . "And the luncheon!" . . .' "Why they didn't even have saddlecloths!" . * . "And those bookies!" . . . "Why, you couldn't move hand or foot!" . . . "Nor see anything!" . . . "A guinea . . . yes and the rest!'* . . . "Well I ‘paid four shillings for a slice of lamb!"..;!! Then ono man found th© word wo had all been waiting for, and some didn't recognise it when it arrived. "I tell you what it is," ho said, "the English Derby is an Anachronism.!" That's it. Anachronism, by Time Immemorial—lnfatuation, by Proj udicc —Conservatism; Precedent —Stockstill. A typical English strain, worse luck. THE RACE ITSELF.

The race itself is easily described. When the hordes came straggling down the hill at, Tattenham corner, the favourite, the' horse that couldn't lose, tho horse that was estimated to be carrying upwards of a million of. money—Gantain Greer's Slievo Gallion—was well in the lead galloping—cantering is the fetter word—at the head of the .field, and looking all over an easy winner. The bookies began to scratch ' their heads. But at tho bottom of the hill in tho gully, which k divides the interminable "straight,” the leader began to tire and bore out. Boss Croker's Orby, who had stolen into the rails while the others went wide in the downhill run. at once came into prominence. The farther they went the more Orby began to gaali and the wider Slievo Gallion went out, and ho finished right un under the i judge's box, third. . Woolwinder, who got a bad bump through Madden trying to jamb him through a gap at thq mile-post, came very ; fast at tho finish, but could only get within two lengths.: It was a poor race and a slow, tho milo and a-haif taking the “flower of the English turf" 2min Msec to compass, nearly Bsco shoit of Spearmint's record and only Imm l-ssec factor than St. Amant's figures in the memorable thunderstorm Derby. MR RICHARD CROKER.

Tho owner of this year’s English classic is Mr '‘Boss" Croker, the notorious Tammany Hall leader whom Mr W. T. Stead Hiold •us all so emphatically about a few years ago. That this individual should come along with a mon-grel-bred Irish-trained horse and an American jockey and lower the colours of the English aristocracy—equine and otherwise —must have been “nuts" to that lucky individual. Rumour says tnat besides tho JBwUO of prize money, ho won something. like ,000 in bets. A local paper, referring to the incident, says: except for a buttonhole of blue cornflowers—his racing colours—and a certain .idviiy in gloves, idr Richard Croker in the . unsaddling enclosure after the Derbv, receiving congratulations on a memorable victory, rather suggested a square peg of parochial sobriety in a round hole of public rejoicing. elderly man of medium height, impassive of feature, with close-cropped grey beard, black clothes and largo, blacjw tie, ho by no means realised the popular conception of an owner of a Derby winner.: Anywhere else ’’the ex-Tam-many chieftain might easily have been mistaken for a Primitive Methodist deacon getting an .insight, into racing life —except for those gloves. Those rather weakened the. illusion, and when, after endless handshaking, he lit a cig<t» with tho nonchalance of an old hand, tho illusion vanished completely^ It was a picturesque, and dramatic Derby (said one untruthful local writer). Its picturesquencss was all on the surface, for everybody to see, but tho dramatic aspect of it was recognised only by racing men. What gave it this characteristic was the action of the Jockey Club stewards in refusing' a few years ago to allow Mr Croker's horses to be trained at Newmarket. He bought three expensive yearlings,' giving nearij .£IO,OOO for them. At the time his hoists were trained at his place in Berkshire, but for some reason he sent these costly youngsters to Newmarket, and' almost immediately the Jockey Club stewards ordered; thorn to be removed out of the sacred precincts of the heath. HE WANTED TO KNOW.

Mr Croker wanted to know the reason for this action, and annlied to the stewards for an explanation. This, when it camo, proved to be no explanation, only a reminder that the training grounds of Newmarket were the private property of the club, and that no one was allowed to use them without first receiving permission. “I am directed by the stewards (continued tho epistle) to inform you that they do not wish you to have your horses trained at Newmarket/' There tho matter ended. Mr Croker removed himself and his horses to Ireland, vowing he would never again run anything in England, and a considerable time elapsed ere he broke through his resolution. Curiously enough, one of the stewards in that year wao Colonel, E- W, Baird, the owner of Woolwinder, who finished second to Mr

-•roker’s horse to-day, and was thought by manv people unfortunate not to beat him. The Jockey Club stewards are ho stewards at Epsom, and many other members of the club' witnessed the triumph of Orby. Mr Choker's emotions would have tren worth listening to, but he said nothing on . tho point. K© ook Ms success as calmly as though winning Dorbys were a habit with l/.m. *t expected to win, I have won, and i am delighted/' sums up his remarks. Somebody during the hand-shaking said ho would soon want a new arm. "Ah/' ho replied: "I got used to that sort of thing years ago/' : ' . ■ ■ JOY IN NEW YORK. The triumph of Orby was quite the ©vent of tho day in New York, cabled a New York correspondent; to the "Daily Mail/’ When the news came,’ the keenest pleasure was everywhere expressed. Champagne was drunk last night 'in every Tammany Club in honour of the occasion and of their former leader.:

John He iff, the jockey of the winner. Is an American now riding in- France. e used to be known in-England as the knickerbocker jockey, on ,account of his youth and style of clothes. Maher was offered ,£ISOO to ride for Mr Croker, hut he was under engagement to Lord Rosebery/ Once only this century has an English jockey won the Derby, this being iv. Cannon on St. Amant, in the thunder-storm yean.