july, the perfect month for the derby.

​In last Sunday’s Racing Post, Lee Mottershead, a writer not afraid to put his opinions into print, asked whether it would be innovative or stupid to move the date of the Epsom Derby to July, citing the first Saturday of the month as his suggestion for its position in the racing calendar. He sought plenty of opinion from the great and the good of the sport, with opinion divided 60-40, that’s my estimation, in favour keeping the status quo.
To get my twopenny-worth out of the way to start with. I have long held the view that it is absurd to run four of the classics before we have reached mid-summer, only for the fifth of the series to be kept until the fag-end of the summer, as if it is, as it has become, I believe, an after-thought. A classic horse-race should never be a consolation, easy-pickings, an after-thought. I would not abandon the St.Leger, though for my idea of what to do with it I suggest a trawl through the archive of this website, and you will not have to trawl very far. It is a topic I come back to time and again.
Oliver Cole, the young blood in the father and son training partnership, made the very good point that the Cheltenham Festival works so well because it comes as ‘the crescendo of the season’. The flat season is long enough to make it two halves, with the Epsom Derby a fitting finale of the first half.
The main stumbling block for any change in the race programme for any country in Europe is the European Pattern Committee. It is only they who can give a ‘thumbs up’ or a ‘thumbs down’ to such a radical rejig of the of the classic race programme.
My counter to the argument that the European Pattern is sacrosanct as a change in one country can have a detrimental knock-on effect all around Europe is that if the Epsom Derby is the premier flat race in Europe, certainly in the first half of the season as the Arc rather dominates the last knockings of every season, it should be accommodated when there is a possibility of refuelling its status in the world.
I was surprised by how poor Jim McGrath’s take on the debate was, that if you change the timing of the Derby the breeding season would have alter as well. It made no sense, as did his ‘moving the deckchairs in isolation is a stupid idea’. Obviously changing the date of the Derby would entail mixing and matching many other big races between the Guineas meeting and Royal Ascot. And his point that the flat season doesn’t begin with the Brocklesby but with conception and then the development of the horses is vague and non-sensical. If the Brocklesby is the first race of the new season, then the flat season does indeed start with the Brocklesby as only a dozen 2-year-olds take part, whilst the vast majority stay in their stables to await another day.
And who am I to challenge the long experience and wisdom of John Oxx, the trainer of 2 Derby winners, that it is all part of the test of the thoroughbred colt to have a June Derby, as if running immature horses round a switchback racecourse was just the examination required to sort out the men from the boys. Sometimes the best 3-year-old does not show himself until later in the season. Many an outstanding colt was not considered ready for a June Derby. Many are ruined for life by running in the race. I think my counter to Mr.Oxx would simply to point out that there are no certainties in life and a July Derby might just be the most wonderful experiment ever conducted by the B.H.A. We will only know if we try it.
Whether or not the date of the Epsom Derby is ever changed is of less importance than the debate as to whether the first half of the flat season is fit for purpose. When it was proposed that the Grand National fences should be altered and the distance lessened, many were fervent in their opposition to the proposals. Yet come April the anticipation and excitement of the race ensures that the changes are barely mentioned. It was the same when the fifth-day was added to Royal Ascot. Heritage and tradition are beautiful when viewed from down the ages yet if the sport is handcuffed to the past there can be no progress. I suspect that when the use of spurs was outlawed a similar howl of protest was heard.
To my mind, if the Epsom Derby was run in July, then in the main 3-year-olds would keep to their own age group and only take-on the older age bracket through the second-half of the season. This would provide a natural balance: the first half highlighted by the classic races, the second-half highlighted by the coming together of the 3-year-old colts and fillies and their elders.
In comparison to the Derby, the King George and Queen Elizabeth Stakes is a relative interloper on the flat season and in recent years has plateaued, with the Irish Derby becoming more important for the top 3-year-olds to compete in. I think this debate could include the idea of moving the KG & QE Stakes to the Royal Meeting in place of the Hardwicke. This is the sort of possibility that will come from debating this topic.