the epsom derby.

​There will be a continuous diet of hyperbole this week regarding the Epsom Derby being the greatest horse race in the world. Don’t buy into it. The race, to my way of thinking, someone who has followed horse racing for nearly sixty-years, is that the race is becoming an anachronism, a sporting event that though important and vital to the participants, actually means very little to the public at large. I suspect, in Australia the same might be said of the Melbourne Cup and in America about the Kentucky Derby, though as those jurisdictions have no appreciable National Hunt racing the Melbourne Cup and the Kentucky Derby may have greater resonance with the Australian and American public than the Epsom Derby has to the British public.
Apart from the date it is run, I have few reservations about the actual race. It’s main selling point is that it is run on Epsom Downs, a racecourse like no other, as this element provides jeopardy. Will the favourite get in a good position for galloping down Tattenham Hill? Which horses are better able to adapt to galloping downhill? Then there is the camber and the distance. Variables that play their part every year in determining the winner.
But the race has lost its lustre, whereas the Grand National and to a lesser extent the Cheltenham Gold Cup remain in the public eye. I actually believe Royal Ascot is head and shoulders above Epsom in the affections, if that is the correct description, of the sporting and non-sporting public. Something needs to be done to restore the Derby to its former glorious status.
I would have no hesitation to returning the race to a Wednesday and have the Derby meeting two-weeks after Royal Ascot. When staged on a Wednesday it allowed working people the opportunity of a day-off (even if they skive off work) during the week, allowing people to look forward to the Derby, to plan their day, to associate the Derby with fun and, to use an old-fashioned phrase, gay abandon. When run on a Wednesday, the Epsom Derby was as much a working man’s race as it was a social event for high society.
I cannot believe that running the Epsom Derby later in the season cannot but bring about anything other than benefits to owners, trainers and the horses. As it was last year due to government restrictions, the big 3-year-old race for colts at the Royal Ascot, the King George the 5th, gained greater relevance for the season as it became the main trial for the Derby. The race led on to something bigger and better. The Coronation Cup would also benefit, I believe.
But where the Epsom Derby is losing out big-time is in the archaic method of entry. Rather like Harrow and Eton, horses are signed up to the race before they are even broken-in, let alone breezing up the home gallops. What this determines is that for a year-and-a-half all we get is horses being taken out of the race and only vague promises, even at the end of their two-year-old seasons, of what might turn out at Epsom in the first Saturday in June.
We should dispense with the preliminary entry stages and as with the Grand National have a first entry 3-months before the race. Actually, give the public a list of horses that at least potentially will line up for the race. Provide racing journalists with fodder in which to excite the betting public and start an active ante-post market, with bookmakers chalking up their odds a week after the entries become known.
The day of the Grand National entries is a day in the calendar for National Hunt enthusiasts, as is the day the weights are announced. The Epsom Derby needs a similar build-up, similar anticipation. As I write, 5-days before the race is run, I have only a vague idea of what will turn-out. It’s all very well Aidan playing his hand close to his chest but is that, as professional as it might be, beneficial to the race? If he is going to run eight, name them? Even if one or two go missing come the day.
If the Epsom Derby is ‘the greatest horserace in the world’, which I doubt, even on the flat, it cannot be allowed to wallow in its ancient history. What was proper in 1821 is not necessarily good for the race in 2021. The Epsom Derby needs change; but that does not mean the Downs must lose the gypsies, the fairground or the unique graduations of the course itself.