A HISTORY OF SURREY 



any other race in the world. Other races 

 are more valuable, the Ascot Cup is more 

 difficult to win, but ' the Derby ' remains the 

 greatest race, and the Derby winner the 

 greatest horse of the year. 



The great number of days of racing in the 

 county of Surrey is due to the fact that the 

 district, in which the various meetings are 

 held, lies within a very short distance of 

 London. Formerly, nineteen race meetings 

 out of every twenty were of only local interest, 

 and where the sporting element was strongest, 

 and where most horses were bred, or trained, 

 there the fixtures were more frequent, and or 

 greater importance. Railways have brought 

 about great changes in the racing world, for 

 easier facilities for transit of horse and man 

 produced a general tendency towards central- 

 isation ; and one by one the small country 

 meetings disappeared from the list of fixtures, 

 the cause of their effacement being in most 

 cases lack of pecuniary support. 



An edict of the Jockey Club that no flat 

 race should be of less value than;^iOO, and 

 the rise of the gate-money meeting practi- 

 cally made an end of the old-fashioned country 

 fixtures, for of the few that remain about 

 three-fourths have been modernised and turned 

 into gate-money meetings ; while the others 

 — such as Epsom, Ascot, York and Doncaster 

 — have had sufficient prestige, and make 

 enough money, to be independent of what, 

 in the slang of the course, is called the ' bob 

 a nob ' income. 



This tendency towards centralisation prac- 

 tically made London the centre of racing ; 

 hence the high position of Surrey. Now 

 putting on one side Epsom — which is an 

 open meeting — the Surrey fixtures do not 

 draw great crowds, except on the bank holi- 

 days, and even then the numbers hardly reach 

 half the total which pays admission on a Cup 

 day at Manchester, or a Northumberland 

 Plate day at Gosforth Park. It has been a 

 general opinion for many years past that on 

 the Derby day there are something like a 

 million people in the neighbourhood of Epsom 

 Downs ; while on the other hand an ordinary 

 day's flat racing at a Surrey enclosure attracts 

 not more than from ten to fifteen thousand, 

 while a bank holiday crowd, if the weather 

 be fine, sometimes reaches seventy thousand. 

 A day of cross country sport in the winter, if 

 the weather is indiflFerent, will bring together 

 not more than a thousand people. 



We may take it then that racing has come 

 to Surrey because of its proximity to London, 

 and not because dwellers in the county really 

 care about the sport. It also owes something 

 to the fact that the stations of Waterloo and 



Victoria are in the West End of London, and 

 within easy distance of the clubs, restaurants, 

 and residential parts of the Metropolis. Prac- 

 tically all race trains to Surrey meetings start 

 from one of the two stations named, or from 

 London Bridge (though a line from Charing 

 Cross and Cannon Street to Tattenham Corner 

 has lately been opened), and thus the racing 

 man living at the West End need not start 

 until shortly before noon, and from all the 

 Surrey meetings he can be back in town about 

 six o'clock. 



The town of Epsom is within sixteen miles 

 of London, and the grand stand of the race- 

 course is two miles beyond the town. San- 

 down Park is thirteen miles by road from 

 Hyde Park Corner, Hurst Park fourteen, and 

 Kempton Park perhaps half a mile farther by 

 the shortest route, these four places being all . 

 within an easy drive. Gatwick andLingfield 

 are beyond driving distance, unless with a 

 change of horses, Gatwick being twenty-five, 

 and Lingfield about twenty-seven miles from 

 the West End. Nowadays all the Surrey 

 fixtures can be reached in from forty minutes 

 to a couple of hours by motor car, and this 

 without infringing the law by going too fast. 



Racing at Epsom is of great antiquity, and 

 during that period of the town's history when 

 it enjoyed some reputation as a Spa, and as 

 far back as 1690, we are told that 'on the 

 Downs races were held daily at noon.' It 

 would appear that the meetings were of little 

 account until the races for the Derby and 

 Oaks were established. The programme of 

 the spring meeting df 1780 comprised six 

 races, including these two great events. The 

 meeting occupied three days, but races in 

 those days being run in heats, took more time 

 than they do nowadays. The institution of 

 the Derby and the Oaks has been graphically 

 described by Lord Rosebery.* 



In the last quarter of the eighteenth century a 

 roystering party at a neighbouring country house 

 founded two races, in two successive years, one for 

 three year old colts and fillies, the other for three 

 year old fillies, and named them gratefully after 

 their host and his home — the Derby and Oaks. 

 Seldom has a carouse had a more permanent effect. 

 Up to that Epsom had enjoyed little more than the 

 ordinary races of a market town. The great 

 Eclipse himself, who long lived in Epsom, had run 

 there in some obscurity. But now horses, some 

 of them unworthy to draw him in a post-chaise, 

 were to earn immortality by winning on Epsom 

 Downs, before hundreds of thousands of spectators. 

 Parliament was to adjourn during the ensuing cen- 

 tury, not without debate, to watch the struggle. 



> In the Introduction to Epsom, by Gordon 

 Home, 1901. 



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