!92 



THE DERBY 



I -WILL spare repetition of that too familiar story of 

 what Lord Beaconsfield said to Lord George Bentinck 

 when the future Premier was told that he did not under- 

 stand what winning the Derby really meant. He knew 

 little of racing, but he knew that ; and, indeed, it is the 

 one great event in the racing year in which multitudes 

 of those who have no cognisance of turf affairs permit 

 themselves to take an interest. To what part of the 

 world is not the name of the winner sent flashing along 

 wires and cables within a few moments of the thrilling 

 time when the horses have rounded Tattenham Corner, 

 strided down the hill, passed the bell, and then, amid 

 the roar of the multitude, dashed by the post ? The 

 winner may only just have got his head in front ; but he 

 has ' won the Derby,' and is accordingly exalted — unduly 

 exalted, it may be, for a head is a desperately narrow 

 margin — far above his fellows. The regular devotee of 

 racing concerns himself all the year about other events, 

 notably, perhaps, the Cambridgeshire ; but to the ordinary 

 Englishman, at home or abroad, there is one great race 

 in the year, a national institution, and that is the 

 Derby. 



M}^ experiences go back some nineteen years, though 

 at an earlier date I did chance to see Pretender and Pero 

 Gomez speed past the judge head and head, in the race 



