Derby Day
5/6/2015
The first entry in my new diary each January is a reminder of Derby Day – these days the first Saturday in June. In my childhood it was the first Wednesday, but commerce now rules, and, after an uncertain period, Derby Day at Epsom available to everyone on weekends, seems a success. I’d still like it to be ‘hidden away’ on a Wednesday, though. I remember taking an English A Level paper on Derby Day afternoon in 1965 – there were only three or four of us scribbling away in the room – and when the master, ‘Bruiser’ (my old form teacher), came in to relieve the previous invigilator, I asked, ‘What won the Derby, sir?’ ‘Sea Bird’ was the reply. Sea Bird was probably the greatest Derby winner of last century and I still regret not seeing his effortless victory live on TV. A few years later, when I was working as a teacher, I once pretended to have a dentist visit to catch the Derby, arriving at my mother’s house in the afternoon to watch Nijinski win majestically (in glorious 1970 black and white). I’ve been to Epsom myself twice – once at University, missing a Cambridge May Week rehearsal (and getting bollocked by the play’s director the following day). Royal Palace won, from Ribocco. My second and last visit – again when I was a teacher, sneaking away during a very quiet exam period – was for a very poor running of the race in 1974: Snow Knight’s Derby. The traffic to Epsom was nightmarish, and it cured me of the desire to ‘be there’.
An obsession, then. And I think I know where that comes from. In 1959 I came downstairs that first Wednesday in June, and my dad was reading the Daily Express (then a paper worth reading) at the kitchen table. ‘What’s going to win the Derby, then?’ he asked me. I looked at the list of names. ‘Parthia, I said, quite liking the sound of it. Parthia won. The following year, after this triumph, my dad asked the same question. ‘St. Paddy’ I said. Who also won. Sadly my winning sequence finished there: fancying the names gets you only so far in the racing game. By the time of Larkspur’s triumph in 1962, dad was dying of cancer. I watched the race downstairs and then went upstairs to tell him, but he had only two weeks to live and (to be brutally unsentimental about it) had other things to think about. The following year, however, Relko, a French colt, won the Derby thrillingly by five lengths, and two days later Noblesse took the Oaks even more breathtakingly – and I was hooked. Sir Ivor in 1968 was the most brilliant Derby winner I have ever seen. Like this year, I notice, the Derby is the same day as the European Cup Final, and Manchester United won that year. That evening’s television (I was at Cambridge, and sadly doing exams in the afternoon) showed George Best, Bobby Charlton and co live, with a recording of Sir Ivor’s win during half time - though I knew the result by then.Sir Ivor’s optimum distance was probably a mile and a quarter (the Derby is a mile and a half). Lester Piggott, on Sir Ivor, let Connaught, the second favourite, race for home, before – in the last moments - unleashing an electrifying run. As Vincent O’Brien, Sir Ivor’s trainer, used to say, watching re-runs on television: ‘I still don’t think he’s going to get there.’
I’ve written elsewhere (here) how I dreamed the Derby winner once and won’t rehearse that again. What is remarkable in all this is how one ‘takes the dead person into oneself’ (to use the psychological jargon). My dad died when I was 15. Here we are, 53 years on, and I am still recalling him in this way. He was a gambler. I’m not, having my mother’s, ’Don’t bet like your dad,’ at the back of my brain. When he was dying and I went into the bedroom to sit with him, he gave me a brown envelope to take to the bookies: ‘Don’t tell your mam,’ he said. He had no life insurance, I later realised, and wonder if this was his attempt to leave us a legacy. I took the envelope as requested, kept quiet, and the bet presumably went down. There was never much danger, after that, of my being the bookies’ pal. What I love about flat racing and classic colts, is the breeding. (Nijinski is by Northern Dancer out of Flaming Page etc). It’s completely pointless for someone who will never own a horse, but in my head I can trace back pedigrees – with the major bloodlines – to about 1880. One day, of course, this cheerfully useless facility will disappear, like my dad. These days, I’m aware of mortality on this day more than any other.
People ask me for tips. I confidently predicted Australia, the Aiden O’Brien colt, last year, but can’t oblige this time. Australia’s breeding suggested he would do better than his narrow third in a very good 2,000 Guineas. And he obliged. But by the time this little memoir has been posted we will have a new ‘immortal’. They aren’t all greats, of course – the Derby comes a bit early in the racing calendar to decide that – but there is only one Derby: the rest – Kentucky Derby, Irish Derby etc. are copies – and at 4.30 pm, on the downs at Epsom, for two and a half minutes time will stop for me. Thanks, dad.
An obsession, then. And I think I know where that comes from. In 1959 I came downstairs that first Wednesday in June, and my dad was reading the Daily Express (then a paper worth reading) at the kitchen table. ‘What’s going to win the Derby, then?’ he asked me. I looked at the list of names. ‘Parthia, I said, quite liking the sound of it. Parthia won. The following year, after this triumph, my dad asked the same question. ‘St. Paddy’ I said. Who also won. Sadly my winning sequence finished there: fancying the names gets you only so far in the racing game. By the time of Larkspur’s triumph in 1962, dad was dying of cancer. I watched the race downstairs and then went upstairs to tell him, but he had only two weeks to live and (to be brutally unsentimental about it) had other things to think about. The following year, however, Relko, a French colt, won the Derby thrillingly by five lengths, and two days later Noblesse took the Oaks even more breathtakingly – and I was hooked. Sir Ivor in 1968 was the most brilliant Derby winner I have ever seen. Like this year, I notice, the Derby is the same day as the European Cup Final, and Manchester United won that year. That evening’s television (I was at Cambridge, and sadly doing exams in the afternoon) showed George Best, Bobby Charlton and co live, with a recording of Sir Ivor’s win during half time - though I knew the result by then.Sir Ivor’s optimum distance was probably a mile and a quarter (the Derby is a mile and a half). Lester Piggott, on Sir Ivor, let Connaught, the second favourite, race for home, before – in the last moments - unleashing an electrifying run. As Vincent O’Brien, Sir Ivor’s trainer, used to say, watching re-runs on television: ‘I still don’t think he’s going to get there.’
I’ve written elsewhere (here) how I dreamed the Derby winner once and won’t rehearse that again. What is remarkable in all this is how one ‘takes the dead person into oneself’ (to use the psychological jargon). My dad died when I was 15. Here we are, 53 years on, and I am still recalling him in this way. He was a gambler. I’m not, having my mother’s, ’Don’t bet like your dad,’ at the back of my brain. When he was dying and I went into the bedroom to sit with him, he gave me a brown envelope to take to the bookies: ‘Don’t tell your mam,’ he said. He had no life insurance, I later realised, and wonder if this was his attempt to leave us a legacy. I took the envelope as requested, kept quiet, and the bet presumably went down. There was never much danger, after that, of my being the bookies’ pal. What I love about flat racing and classic colts, is the breeding. (Nijinski is by Northern Dancer out of Flaming Page etc). It’s completely pointless for someone who will never own a horse, but in my head I can trace back pedigrees – with the major bloodlines – to about 1880. One day, of course, this cheerfully useless facility will disappear, like my dad. These days, I’m aware of mortality on this day more than any other.
People ask me for tips. I confidently predicted Australia, the Aiden O’Brien colt, last year, but can’t oblige this time. Australia’s breeding suggested he would do better than his narrow third in a very good 2,000 Guineas. And he obliged. But by the time this little memoir has been posted we will have a new ‘immortal’. They aren’t all greats, of course – the Derby comes a bit early in the racing calendar to decide that – but there is only one Derby: the rest – Kentucky Derby, Irish Derby etc. are copies – and at 4.30 pm, on the downs at Epsom, for two and a half minutes time will stop for me. Thanks, dad.