SECOND PERIOD : GEORGE III. 63 



Since 1838 (included) the race has been run in- 

 variably on a Wednesday ; up to that date (with 

 the single exception of a Wednesday in 1786) it 

 had always been run on a Thursday, though the 

 Oaks was always from the first run on the follow- 

 ing Friday, as now. The Derby has always been 

 open to fillies (three years old) as well as colts 

 (three years old), and was won by a filly in 1801 

 (Eleanor, winner of the Oaks also), in 1857 (by 

 Blink Bonny, winner of the Oaks also), and in 

 1882 (by Shotover, beaten for the Oaks, which 

 was won by Lord Stamford's Geheimniss), The 

 distance has varied from a mile (1780-83) to 

 about a mile and a half (1784, and ever since), 

 and the course has undergone several alterations, 

 though the distance remained as nearly as possible 

 the same), notably in 1848, when what was known 

 as the Old Derby Course — of horseshoe shape, 

 and exactly a mile and a half — was abandoned for 

 another, which ran into the old course at the 

 mile-post, and again in 1872, when the present 

 course was adopted. The subscription and forfeit 

 were always virtually the same — namely, 50 sovs. 

 (or guineas) and 'half forfeit' — until in 1890, 

 when, what with short races for fabulous sums 

 offered by competing companies, and what with 



