THE ORIGIN OF CLASSIC RACES.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XIII, Issue 800, 6 July 1905, Page 6

THE ORIGIN OF CLASSIC RACES.

Although named after Edward Stanley, twelfth Earl of Derby, there is every reason to believe that Sir Charles Bunbury was the actual founder of the Derby —-he won the first race with his colt Diomed—for at a dinner party given by Sir Charles at his London residence immediately after the Epsom meeting in 1/99 the details of the first Epsom Derby were arranged (says a well-known writer). Diomed’s Derby was not the first race of that name run in the British Isles, for far back in the seventeenth century, at the time when the Earls of Derby ruled over the Isle of Man, a race called the Derby Stakes was annually run on a narrow strip of turf which separates the bays of Derbyhaven and Castletown on that island.

The Oaks was established a year before the Derby at Epsom, 'and there is no doubt that the Earl of Derby was sponsor for it, and its name is that of his lordship’s estate in the vicinity. Strange to say, the first Oaks was won by Lord Derby’s Bridget, by Herod. The Epsom Derby was established in 1781, five years after the inauguration of the St. Leger, another race that was proposed after a good dinner. At the dinner mentioned, the Marquis of Rockingham proposed that a £25 sweepstakes for three-year-olds should be run for at Doncaster , and out of compliment to Lieu-tenant-General Anthony St. Leger, of Park Hill, the race should be called the St. Leger Stakes. It is somewhat strange that the first St. Leger should, like the Derby and Oaks, fall to the proposer, as the Marquis of Rockingham’s Alabaculla won it.