CHAPTER IV 

 EPSOM 



Importance of Epsom — Size of crowd — Derby winner as best of his year — Some 

 recent winners — Galtee More — Persimmon — Sir Visto — Isinglass — Ladas — Sir 

 Hugo — Common — Sainfoin — Ayrshire — Donovan — Jeddah — Flying Fox — His 

 pedigree and ancestors — Performances — Defeats and victories — Three-year-old 

 career of Flying Fox — The great sale at Kingsclere — Description of Flying 

 Fox — Prince of Wales' second Derby — Diamond Jubilee — His singular two- 

 year-old career — Comes out an improved three-year-old — How he won the 

 Guineas — What happened on the Newmarket Stakes day — Race for the Derby 

 — Poor Forfarshire — Description of Epsom Course — Scene on the hill — 

 National carnival — Epsom stands — Advantage of horses sometimes running 

 on steep gradients — Other Epsom courses — The Metropolitan Course — The 

 Epsom programme — Value of stakes — Two-year-old events — The City and 

 Suburban — Railway arrangements — Special trains — Charges. 



IN many respects Epsom is the most important racecourse 

 in the kingdom. It has withstood the rivalry of the 

 modern enclosure, and in like manner its Derby has not 

 lost caste through the institution of the ten-thousand-pound 

 prize. It draws a far bigger crowd than does any other 

 meeting, open or enclosed, and yet it has disadvantages 

 innumerable when it is compared with any of the more 

 modern, up-to-date establishments. Nevertheless, in spite 

 of these disadvantages, the people go there in their tens 

 of thousands, both in the spring and in the Derby week ; 

 and for many years past it has been a popular article of 

 faith that at least a million people are present when the 

 Derby is run, though thousands of these do not see the 

 race at all, other attractions of one sort and another taking 

 them to the Downs on that particular day. Still, unless 

 one has been present at Epsom on a Derby day, it is almost 

 impossible to realise what a tremendous hold racing has on 

 the British public. That London supplies the greater part 



