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Does anyone else think it was just a bit underwhelming?
Maybe the weather didn’t help. And the same old connections winning again.
Or is the idea that the Derby was better on a Wednesday simply looking at the past through rose tinted glasses?
Discuss, as it used to say at the end of exam questions.
The winner has won it well and seems a good horse unlike Serpentine who won with similar tactics but I can’t get excited by another Ballydoyle winner.
The more I know the less I understand.
Some suggested Items for Review
The Ground – Was it satisfactory?
William Buick wasn’t happy with the ground – perhaps some trainers unhappy with the watering policy too?
Were some of the Derby principals under instruction to take it easy early on to assess the ground?
The Field Size
Does the world-famous Epsom Derby need a half-dozen rank rank-outsiders (50/1 – 250/1) in its rank?
The larger and more competitive field actually made the race more interesting to me.
The horses at bigger prices were far from hopeless cases, and plenty of horses at large odds have performed well in the race previously.
I’m just back from Epsom; it was a pleasant enough day (until it started tipping it down), and everyone appeared to enjoy themselves. It was a rarity that there was no drunken fisticuffs, and even the charlied-up Peaky Blinders wannabes were few and far between – maybe the forecast bad weather kept some of them away. It was actually a really enjoyable day at a big race meeting, which isn’t always the case these days.
To address the two main points raised by CAS:
Yes, the Derby was better when it was on a Wednesday, and the whole country ground to a halt for it. Sadly, those days are long gone – the horse no longer occupies the same place in the nation’s psyche (most of us no longer use them for work and transportation), and football has become the undisputed number one sport, so that even a meaningless game against third-rate opposition takes precedence over the world’s greatest (flat) race. If it were up to me, the Derby would move back midweek (I’d hold the meeting from Friday to Sunday, with the Derby on the opening day), but racing is all about getting people through the doors (and into the bars) these days, so that will never happen.
Yes, Coolmore’s domination is boring. But they are the only ones in Europe who breed for middle distances and don’t appear to be completely besotted by speed and precocity (yet). It was interesting to note how much has been made of the fact this was Aidan O’Brien’s 11th Derby win: I looked it up on the train home and by my, possibly alcohol-affected, calculations, he has had 104 runners in the race. That means a strike-rate of 10.58% – pretty mundane. And only five of his eleven winners were what one would consider his “first string”. A lot of his success in the race appears to be from sheer weight of numbers.
Speaking of which, I counted no fewer than ten RTV presenters on course today: Luck, Dixon, Mangan, Stanley, Walsh, Hislop, Baker, Dunkley, Casey and Yates. And there may have been more that I missed! Was it really necessary to send so many of them? I’m strongly considering cancelling my RTV subscription after that.
To conclude, it was a smashing day out but, overall, I agree with the premise of the opening post: Derby Day ain’t what it used to be.
“Does the world-famous Epsom Derby need a half-dozen rank rank-outsiders (50/1 – 250/1) in its rank?”
Why? What’s the problem with them if there aren’t any better horses declared to run in the race?
A 50/1 (66/1 this morning) shot finished second, so you’d deprive that horse of a run? A 50/1 shot was 4th.
3, 50/1 shots, a 40/1 shot and even a 100/1 shot beat the 2/1 fav and along with 125/1 and 200/1 horses, all beat horses at 4/1, 7/1 and 16/1. So I think we can forget about that idea.Andrew Cooper said he’s happy to run The Derby on good to firm ground. You’ll struggle to do that if you water on the Tuesday with plenty of rain forecast. If the heavy rain had come a few minutes earlier the ground would have been even worse for The Derby.
I’ve said before some Clerks water if no rain is forecast but still water if rain is forecast. It must be quite depressing if you’ve got a fast ground horse how they get away with it. Chester’s May meeting had no rain at all but still produced good to soft ground and York almost did the same, it certainly wasn’t good to firm.Pleased to hear you enjoyed the day, Glad. I hope the beer was good as well. I used to attend but I have not been since 2015.
What was the crowd size like? It was difficult to tell from the RTV coverage. It didn’t sound very noisy, although maybe the weather dampened spirits somewhat?
I always remember the crowd on the hill being a great spectacle. Does that happen now? From what I could see, the inner track looked sparsely populated with fewer open topped buses than in previous years.
“The horse no longer occupies the same place in the nation’s psyche (most of us no longer use them for work and transportation), and football has become the undisputed number one sport”.
All undeniably true. I think it is difficult for a horse race which is over in about two and a half minutes to grab the public’s attention nowadays, especially when they will not have heard of most of the runners unless they follow racing day in day out. There were a few I had hardly heard of before!
I am still not totally convinced by the Wednesday argument but it might be worth a try.
I can’t quite put my finger on it but I think the day ought to be better. The support card might need consideration. I think it was better when the 10 furlong handicap was the first race. The fillies Listed race was better on the Friday and I don’t particularly like two 5 furlong handicaps before the Derby.
Thanks for the weather and ground updates Glad. I particularly enjoyed your turf picture. Very nice grass it was too. I didn’t show it to my sheep or I would have been knocked over and my phone eaten.
I always use the Cask Ale bar at Epsom, CAS, and they always provide well-kept beer. They had Hogs Back T.E.A. today, as they often do, at £7.20 a pint, which was only to be expected.
The crowd was busy but not enormous and, as I mentioned in my earlier post, surprisingly well-mannered for a major Saturday raceday. There appeared to be a higher percentage than normal of people there for the racing and not just to get tanked up, which came as a pleasant surprise.
As for The Hill, it’s a shadow of what it once was. I first attended the Derby in 1980, on my dad’s work trip, and we were in a hired bus on the inside of the course. Again, those days are long gone, sadly.
The supporting card definitely needs revision: as I mentioned, I would go to three days, with seven races per day and a Group One, a new Group Two, a Group Three and a Listed race on each day, plus three handicaps. At the moment, the meeting has no Group Two races and only two Group Threes and one Listed event, so a lot of work would need to be done. Still, such problems are not insurmountable and a lot more will hopefully be done to turn the Derby meeting into a real showcase event.
As someone who has always lived locally (I’m just a few stops down the Tottenham Corner line from the racecourse), I would love to see the meeting grow again.
Pleased to hear there is a cask beer bar again. Hogs Back used to be at Epsom back in the early days I attended but then they disappeared.
They always had a bar at Sandown and I recall seeing them at Kempton and Newbury as well.
I think the decline of The Hill is what I was getting at in my original post. I can recall seeing crowds of people heading up there, including plenty of young people. It added greatly to the overall atmosphere but it looks like those days have gone.
As for RTV, I don’t know if it was a technical glitch but it sounded like Tom Stanley was talking over Ruby Walsh sometimes. Dunkley, Baker, Yates and Casey were only involved in the morning and were thankfully absent in the afternoon.
Spotted all of them milling around the place during the day, hence my keeping count!
The Hill has been ruined by this new Family Area in the middle, in my opinion. I don’t know if you saw Jim Allen’s interview with Rishi Persad on last week’s Luck on Sunday, but his contempt for the fact that the public have right of access to the centre of the course was barely veiled; I’m sure if he had his way, everybody would be charged for access.
I was there today and the hill was the quietest I have ever seen it in the 40 years I’ve been going to the Derby. Forecast probably a factor.
Tough to know what to do in order to restore the glory days, perhaps the changing world means they are gone forever.
I’m tempted by the return to a Wednesday. It would have no competition on a Wednesday afternoon whereas on a Saturday it faces multiple alternatives for attention.
Whether you would see a return to large crowds on the hill if you shifted to a Wednesday or whether it’d boost betting turnover I somehow doubt but it’d certainly get more coverage.
Still the greatest test of a thoroughbred IMO and it still has me catching my breath in the seconds before the off.
Two things that I’d say matter in this debate, things which won’t change by moving the race to Wednesday.
The first is name appeal, which in the first half of my racing life, meant Lester. What was he going to ride, who might he upset in the process etc. It filled the racing pages for weeks in advance of the race. To a lesser but still significant degree, he was replaced by Frankie, the only name connected with racing that anybody in my extended family would be able to come up with if asked (other than me that is!).
There’s no such appeal now – Ryan means nothing to 99% of the population and he does nothing to alter that situation, which is his right I suppose. As for the Coolmore owners, they’re a classic PR mans nightmare. Most of the time they look about as excited as guests forced to attend the funeral of a man that none of them ever really liked. I’m pretty sure the compulsory morning suits (stupid in 2025) don’t help with this.
The second thing is that the facilities at Epsom are rubbish. My last visit was for the April meeting a few years ago and I found it crowded even then with just 6,000 in attendance. The layout of the ground floor in Members produces constant issues of people moving in opposite directions through the same narrow space. The ground floor space in the Grandstand area is a large soulless concrete cavern. The decision to put the parade ring and saddling boxes behind the stand limits the space available for racegoers to relax between races.
Maybe it’s just me, but I vowed never to go there again and certainly not when there would be an even bigger crowd.
Racing just doesn’t hold the general publics attention like it use to. There are many factors at play.
Saturation of racing on TV. You only used to get sat fixtures on the box and midweek for the big festivals. Less is more I suppose.
There is definitely no Lester factor. Ryan Moore is a brilliant jockey but hasn’t got the hint of a devil about him.
There is so much sport on TV racing was always going to struggle to keep its audience.
No idea how you halt the slide. I still love it but it’s a niche interest and minus the betting would be in dire straits.The drone shots of the infield were rather depressing to see just how empty it was (you barely used to see any grass visable and the double decker buses used to run the vast majority of the home straight) – granted the weather forecast may have detered a few thousand extra from coming.
There is a sign of the times type feeling about it but then you look elsewhere around the world at other big races (like the Kentucky Derby and Melbourne Cup) they still have enormous crowds attending them so there must be something that could be done to re-generate the interest.
I don’t think there is any one thing that will reverse things and whilst crowds will never reach there mid-week heyday, both days were down 4,000 (Derby Day) and 3,000 (Oaks Day) on last years figures which at just under 27,000 and just over 18,000 neither of which are much to shout about.
To be honest over the two days there really isn’t enough quality races either, you have the big three oviously plus the G3 Princess Elizabeth, G3 Diomed Stakes, Listed Surrey Stakes, Woodcote and maybe the Dash but the Handicaps are pretty poor fair (maybe they need a big 10F Handicap worth £100k and linked it with a Bonus if they also go on to win one of the big Handicaps at Royal Ascot) as an incentive.
Glad ,
I watched the race today , I always enjoy the Derby ever since I backed Teenoso as a kid in first Derby I watched .
I’ve spent many hours at Sandown and Kempton probably because of my old love of NH racing with my Dad . I have however never been to Epsom , it has now struck me that I need to go once to Derby , and walk the course because it’s still iconic in my eyes .
I’ve looked at options , did you go Tatts only , or Tatts plus a reserved seat in one of the stands , not overkeen on top hat etc so is Duchess stand ok or just go for Tatts and stand on the steppings .
Be keen to hear your advice .Helcat – I just do Tatts and find my a decent spot on the steps. If you’re doing a “once in a lifetime” trip, it would be worth reserving a seat, I would suppose.
I find the old top hat and tails totally anachronistic, so I don’t bother with that. Again, though, if you want to make the day special, it’s something you could consider.
Personally, I would recommend visiting Epsom for either the Spring meeting or the final fixture of the season – it’s a lot quieter and less crowded on those two days.
But there’s only one Derby…
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