A Mirror of the Turf; Or, The Machinery of Horse-Racing Revealed, Showing the Sport of Kings as It Is To-Day

by James Glass Bertram

The Derby Day, with its attendant incidents, has been so often described that there is little or nothing left to say which can be endowed with the form of novelty. Writers, grave and gay, have written accounts of the great race and its surroundings from many points of view. What has been seen on the way to Epsom Downs has been over and over again described in graphic language. To the Derby, by road or rail, has afforded the industrious descriptive reporter yards of "copy"; incidents, comic and pathetic, have been seen or invented by "our own"; and the suggestion of a London pressman to hark back on the old accounts and republish them with a little "dressing up" was not a bad one. An industrious penman might find in some of the descriptions written twenty years ago matter that, judiciously recompiled, would not be without a considerable thread of interest.

The number of persons who annually witness the running for the Derby Stakes has been variously stated by statisticians, and has been guessed at half a million; but other writers do not think the attendance ever exceeded two hundred and fifty thousand individuals; and one or two well-informed persons who have ventured to take a census of the number present on the Downs on the Derby Day, do not venture to say that it exceeds a hundred thousand, all told; but even that figure would represent a vast multitude of people.

The Derby is no longer the great betting race it was at one time. Sixty years since, hundreds of thousands of pounds in big sums, it was thought, would change hands, the bulk of the money going into the pockets of a few persons, and these generally being in connection with "the stable." In some years very good prices have been obtained against the winning horse just previous to the start, and it is a mistake to suppose, as many people who know no better often do, that "the winner of the Derby always starts favourite." That is not so.

The "favourite" from Diomed (1780) to Donovan (1889) has won the great race on thirty-nine occasions, both of the horses named being in that proud position. In twenty-three of the races for the Derby the favourite has required to put up with second place, and on fifteen occasions with third honours only; so that from the beginning, in 1780, to the year in which Donovan was first the favourite has won or been placed as many as seventy-seven times, leaving victory or place honours to be attained by outsiders, or at any rate, non-favourites, in thirty-two different years. In some years the winner of the race has started at what may be termed a remunerative price. The starting price of Hermit, as all the world knows, has been quoted at 100 to 1, but very likely 50 or at most 66 to 1 would more correctly represent the rate of the odds; two horses which started at 50 to 1 were Azor (1817) and Spaniel (1831); Phosphorus (1837), Caractacus (1862), and Doncaster (1873), were each priced at 40 to 1, at the start. Merry Monarch (1845) is the only Derby winner which started at 33 to 1; Noble (1786), Lapdog (1826), Amato, and Bloomsbury (1838-9) were all 30 to 1 chances, and on ten different occasions the winner of the Derby has figured at 20 to 1 as the field was taken in hand by the starter. Seven times have odds been laid "on" the winner, whilst "evens" have four times been recorded.

As all interested in horse-racing know, the Derby, till within the last three years, has been a self-supporting race, and even now it is only, if at all, a little less so. Harking back, and looking over Blue Ribbon history, we find that those running horses in the great Epsom event required to pay for the privilege of doing so a sum of £50. Gentlemen who entered their horses, but for some reason or other did not run them, had, according to the conditions, to pouch out £25, and in the earlier years of the Derby "guineas" were exacted. In the rubric of the first race no sum is allotted to the second or third horses, but in 1782 it is mentioned that "the second received 100 gs. out of the stakes." No allowance would appear, in the earlier years of the Blue Ribbon, to have been assigned to the other placed horse, but in the course of time there appeared a clause in the conditions to the effect that the winner would have to pay £100 towards the expenses of additional police officers, and some years afterwards another exaction was made in the form of a fee of £50 to the judge; so that the very earliest traditions of the race point in the direction of meanness.

How the race for the Derby Stakes was originally organised is not very well known, but that machinery of some kind existed for collecting the stakes, and handing the amounts won to the winners of them, may be taken for granted; indeed, we know that it was so, but, for lack of authentic information on the subject, it is better not to risk the publication of merely hearsay statements. For more than a century British sportsmen have quietly allowed themselves to be, as may be said, "victims" of a confederacy that "grabbed" all and gave nothing. Year after year owners of Derby horses generously (perhaps "stupidly" would be the better word) continued to run against each other simply for their own money, much to the profit of the money-seeking Company which leases the racecourse and grand stand on Epsom Downs. Not till within the last six or seven years has there arisen a serious demand for the augmentation of the money run for, and, curiously enough, in most of the schemes which have been ventilated, the Epsom administration seemed alone to be thought of, even by men whom one would have expected to be in sympathy rather with those who provided the means of sport than those who make an inordinate profit out of it.

The concessions made by those who "boss" the Epsom show may be held to be the outcome of the more profitable stakes which have come into vogue of late years. The conditions of the race now read as follows: "The Derby Stakes of 5,000 sovs. for the winner, 500 sovs. for the nominator of the winner, 300 sovs. for the owner of the second, and 200 sovs. for the owner of the third; colts 9 st.; fillies 8 st. 9 lb., by subscription of 50 sovs. each, h. ft. if declared by the first Tuesday in January, 1891, and 10 sovs. only if declared by the first Tuesday in January, 1890; any surplus to be paid to the winner. About a mile and a half, starting at the High Level Starting-post. 206 subs., 41 pd. 10 sovs. ft. Closed July 16, 1889."

The above copy of the rubric shows what the movements made to reform the Derby Stakes have resulted in—namely, the ensuring of a fixed sum to the owner of the winner, as also a gratuity to the breeder of the victorious horse, but no increased allowance is to be given to the animal which comes in second; the third horse, however, will now get £200 instead of £150. The "proprietors of the race" will probably never require to afflict their souls by putting their hands in their pockets, but to change the old time condition at all must have sadly disturbed their serenity. But that which is demanded of the Epsom magnates is not what has so tardily been given. Owners of race-horses would most assuredly have logic on their side if they were to say to the powers that reign over Epsom heath, "You must do as much for us as we do for you." The case may be put in a nutshell in this way, namely, that the two great races run there—Oaks and Derby—bring to the Grand Stand exchequer a sum of at least £20,000, not one penny of which could be otherwise pocketed. Say that £5,000 will be required to defray expenses, and let a similar sum be allocated for division among the shareholders, and there would still remain £10,000 for division among those chivalrous sportsmen who enter their horses, and to these men might well be left the task of organising the division.

The most curious feature of Derby history is undoubtedly how the race came to be the property of any person or body of persons. It was named after the Earl of Derby when it was instituted in 1780, but, as has been mentioned, a long time elapsed before the afterwards great Epsom event became the popular meeting which it now is. Not till 1831 did the entry in any year exceed one hundred horses; so that up to that date, if all the subscribers paid their money, the value of the Derby—the figure was greatly dependent, of course, on the number of horses that came to the starting-post—would very seldom reach a sum of £3,000. Not till George Fordham steered Mr. Acton's Sir Bevys to victory in 1879 did the stake reach its highest value, when, with 278 entries and 22 runners, the sum must have amounted to £7,500, if all who entered their colts paid their stakes. But long before that son of Favonius had placed the Blue Ribbon of the Turf to the credit of his owner, the Epsom Summer Meeting had been placed on a thoroughly business footing, such a footing as has secured for many years a magnificent dividend to the proprietors of the grand stand, who are lessees of the course on which the Derby, Oaks, and other races have for so many years been run; but it has been said that so far as the gentlemen of England—who run colts in the Derby or fillies in the Oaks—and their foreign friends are concerned, they might as well write the names of their horses on pieces of paper, and shaking them together in a hat, select at random the first three and divide the money in accordance with the result of the draw. Minus the excitement attending the race, such a mode of procedure would be better than allowing their costly horses, provided at great expense, to run for the benefit of a body of persons who have a greater love—in all probability a far greater love—for a big dividend than for sport.