CRAZY, BUT WHAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT? ANOTHER DERBY, ANOTHER BALLYDOYLE GUESSING GAME & YORK, NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THIS.

Racing journalists often question why there are so many Derby and Oaks trials in so short a time span. How can it be  anything other than a classic trial orgy when there is barely more than 4-weeks between the Guineas meeting at Newmarket and the Epsom Derby? Of course if there were less classic trials the more information punters would have, with classic trials becoming more meaningful races. For all the kind words directed towards the trials at Chester, as actual races they were one-horse affairs with little excitement generated and nothing we did not already know coming from the results. There is an argument to be made, I suggest, while the pool of available horses remains low, for the Dee Stakes to become a handicap, thereby directing more classic hopefuls to the Vase.

You see, as things stand, losing classic trials is the only solution if you believe the orgy of classic trials in so short a time span is indeed a problem. And if you believe there is a problem, the only solution would be to move the date of the Epsom Derby to after Royal Ascot, with the final classic trials becoming the Ribblesdale and the King Edward the VII. No one notices, of course, that tradition was kicked down the street when the race was moved from the first Wednesday in June to the first Saturday in June, so there is no reason in the world, at a time when the Jockey Club is in the first year of a 5-year plan to reinvent and reinvigorate the Derby, to give consideration to running the Blue Riband of the flat later in the year.

The other annoyance, at least for punters, racing journalists and Epsom's marketing team, is the annual what will Aidan  run and which one will Ryan ride? At this moment in time Aidan still has 17 to choose from and though Ryan will have already dismissed the majority of them from his calculations, the public, the people Epsom are desperate to have reingage with the Derby, are fairly clueless, given Aidan and 'the lads' propensity for springing surprise inclusions and surprise withdrawals, as to whether the race will have a large field, with a high proportion of them from Ballydoyle or a single figure number as Aidan has chosen to run just one. It is a perplexing situation, yet it can be argued that without 'the lads' love of the race, the Epsom Derby may have dwindled away to St. Leger proportions in quality and media and public long ago.

I mention Chris Pitts book 'A Long Time Gone' often enough for the reader to be aware that it is one of my favourite books. A racecourse that thankfully does not appear in its pages is York. But York may have joined the defunct list during the first ten-years of the 1900's, which included Dawlish, Tivyside Hunt, Champion Lodge and Malton, if it were not for James Melrose and especially John Teasdale. There were two groups of people who wanted York races to cease, the York Race Committee who wanted to move the racecourse from the Knavesmire, and the pasture-makers who were attempting to raise extra and unearned income by extracting as much rent as possible from the Race Committee. Both Melrose and Teasdale were determined to keep York races on the Knavesmire.

The pasture-makers held the title of Freemen of York and were more powerful than their image as mere graziers might make them appear. It was a messy situation as it was considered by Melrose and Teasdale that if the races were moved away from the Knavesmire, the races would become the domain of the local corporation, as was Doncaster, and it was unlikely that the Jockey Club would grant a licence in those circumstances. 

Teasdale, though, had a plan. He wanted to persuade the Corporation, who had no intention of paying more rent to the pasture-makers and who believed their only escape route was to find a new location for York races, to purchase the rights of the pasture-makers. Melrose knew the stumbling block to the plan was that for the purchase to go ahead it would take a special Act of Parliament and he doubted if Teasdale plan was the solution he was looking for. Four years later, though, after much legal complexities, town politics and Westminster to and fro, the Act was passed, the Corporation purchased the rights, the pasture-makers became rich, and racing on the Knavemire was preserved for every generation since to enjoy.

For anyone wanting more information on the history of York racecourse, I commend John Stevens book 'Knavesmire. York's Great Racecourse and its Stories.'