SOME EPSOM DERBY WINNERS AND THEIR INDIAN CONNECTION

The Epsom Derby may not be the oldest Classic in the world but it certainly is the most prestigious. It has now been run for 228 years without a break — though some renewals did take place at Newmarket during the War-years — and it is the race which every owner, breeder, trainer and jockey dreams of winning. With such a long history behind it, it is inevitable that some runnings have a distinct Indian connection and that connection needs to be put on record. Some have been recounted here but it is certain that there are many others — a few of them as yet not researched, a few that have been left out due to space constraints and some omitted inadvertently. Indeed many jockeys who have ridden a Derby winner have had an Indian connection and several horses, who have run the Derby, have come to India.

Attila - 1842

In 1842, the race was won by a horse called Attila. Attila was the second favourite at 5/1 and he won comfortably by over three lengths from Robert de Gorham, beating twenty-three other runners. The legendary Manton trainer John Scott saddled the winner and he was ridden by his extremely talented — but alcoholic — brother William. Attila was owned by Col. George Anson who had purchased the colt as a yearling for a mere £200.

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Hermit - 1867

Every Epsom Derby has a story and one of the most sensational of them surrounds Hermit’s Derby in 1867. Hermit was owned by Mr. Henry Chaplin, a Harrow and Christchurch-educated son of the Vicar of Ryehill. At the age of 19, he inherited the magnificent estate of Blankney in Lincolnshire from his uncle and immediately began to buy racehorses. It was said of him that, “he bought horses as if he was drunk and bet as if he was mad”. In 1964, he was engaged to Lady Florence Paget but the London society was shocked when his fiancee eloped with Marquis of Hastings just a few days before the wedding. Chaplin was so devastated that he retired first to Scotland and then came to India to get over his grief and let the scandal die down.

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Volodyovski - 1901

If Gen. George Anson could be called something of a “Chocolate Soldier”, Lord William Beresford was exactly his opposite, a man who earned the sobriquet “Fighting Bill”, was awarded the Victoria Cross for his bravery in rescuing a wounded non-commissioned officer at the Battle of Ulundi in the Zulu War (an honour he refused to accept till the contribution of Sergeant O’Toole — who had come out firing from the lines to cover Lord William’s return — was similarly recognised) and of whom it was generally said that “had he spent more of his life soldiering and concentrated less on Vice-Regal India and the Turf, he would have become one of the most distinguished soldiers of the era”.

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Call Boy - 1927

Theatrical entrepreneur Mr. Frank Curzon — his original name was Deeley which he changed to Curzon when he went on stage in his younger days — was a dying man in the early summer days of 1927. What kept him going was a horse called Call Boy who was in the Primrose House stables of John Watts — Curzon’s private trainer — at Newmarket. Winner of two races at 2, including the Middle Park Stakes, beaten narrowly on his first run at 3 in the Two Thousand Guineas by Adam’s Apple and subsequently a good winner of the Newmarket Stakes, Call Boy had every reason to be well-backed for the Derby. The backers, however, were wary on account of the owner’s precarious health because in those days if the man making the entry died, the horse became ineligible to run. Curzon, whose wife, the sensational West End singing star Isabel Jay had died in February, just about made it to Epsom and Call Boy, did not disappoint him. Ridden with much aplomb by Charlie Elliot, Call Boy led throughout warding off Sir Victor Sassoon’s Hot Night who at one point in the straight had got his nose in front but was eventually outstayed.

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Felstead - 1928

The favourite for the 1928 Derby was Lord Derby’s Fairway who, like Call Boy a year earlier had won the Newmarket Stakes as his lead-up race. On the way to the start, the crowd mobbed the favourite, pulled hair out of his tail as souvenirs and had him so worked up that he had little chance of winning having “boiled over”. It was, thus, anybody’s race and the winner turned up in the shape of 33/1 outsider Felstead on whom Harry Wragg, the “Head Waiter”, showed the supreme art of “waiting” as Sunny Trace and Flamingo went hammer and tongs. Sunny Trace called it quits soon after passing the Tattenham Corner but Flamingo, ridden by previous year’s winning jockey Charlie Elliot carried on, only to be passed by Felstead near home and beaten comfortably.

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The Aga Khan’s Quintet

In the history of the Epsom Derby, two owners have had the distinction of seeing their colours flash past the post on five different occasions — Lord Egremont between 1782 and 1826 and the Aga Khan in the middle of the 20th century. The Aga Khan’s five winners were Blenheim (1929), Bahram (1935), Mahmoud (1936), My Love (1948) and Tulyar (1952).

H. H. Sir Sultan Mohamed Shah, Aga Khan III, was born at Karachi in 1877 and brought up in Bombay in his formative years. The premature death of his father when he himself was just eight meant that he became the spiritual leader of the Ismaili Shia Muslims at a very young age apart from inheriting a large string of racehorses. Tutored privately, his mother ensured that he received the necessary knowledge to assume his responsibilities.

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Windsor Lad - 1934

H. H. Lt. Col. Sir Vijaysinhji Chhatrasinhji of Rajpipla ascended his “gaddi” as the 36th ruler of the Gohil dynasty in 1915 and was recognised as a most capable administrator. Rajpipla was promoted to Class I status and accorded a thirteen-gun salute. A small kingdom of 927 villages measuring just 4,000 square kilometres in the foothills of the Satpura Range between the rivers Narmada and Tapti, it had a very high literacy rate and sound revenue systems. Born in 1890, the Maharaja of Rajpipla — known as “Mr. Pip” abroad — was educated at Rajkumar College, Rajkot and the Imperial Cadet Corps at Dehra Dun.

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Dante - 1945

Some years before Dante won the Derby in 1945 — he is the last Northern-bred winner of the race — his Spike Island half-brother Spadassin — running for the Maharaja of Baroda — had lost the Eclipse Stakes of India by a head. Spadassin later proved himself to be a very good stallion siring three winners of the Indian Derby.

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Pearl Diver - 1948

The 1948 Epsom Derby winner was bred by Mr. Edward Esmond. He acquired Oaks winner Straitlace, Pearl Maiden — grandam of Pearl Diver — and Prix de Diane winner Dorina and these three elite mares were the cornerstones of his successful breeding operation in France while he also bought Donatello II who sired the Epsom Derby winner Crepello — tracing to Dorina — and the dam of another Epsom Derby winner in Pinza.

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Sir Victor Sassoon’s Quartet

No man did more for ‘Indianisation’ of racing than Sir Victor Sassoon. While it is true that it was Mr. K. M. Munshi, his colleague in the Legislative Assembly, who laid down the directive, Sir Victor implemented it, as the Chairman of the R.W.I.T.C., Ltd., with admirable spontaneity, foresight and resolution. Well before the Indian Classics were instituted in 1942-43, Sir Victor had already launched the Eve Bloodstock Scheme, which gave a real philip to Indian breeding.

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Oath – 1999

Of 228 winers of the Epsom Derby, only one has set foot on the Indian soil and he has done so by a most circuitous route. After winning the 1999 Derby comfortably from Aga Khan’s Daliapour — thanks to Kieren Fallon’s relentless driving — Oath lined up for the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Stakes at Ascot. He broke down in that race and his owner, Mr. Fahd Salman sold him for stud duties to Japan. From Japan he went back to Ireland and when he was entered in a Sale, Mr. Rajendra Singh Idar bought him for his Pratap Stud Farm. He took up his residence at Himmatnagar in 2006 and the foals of his first Indian-born crop are now on ground.

Sometime before Oath’s arrival at Pratap Stud, that nursery also had on its roster a mare called Look. Look was the grandam of Visindar who went to the post as the favourite for Sir Percy’s Epsom Derby in 2006. She is, perhaps, the only mare to have come to India from whom a fancied Epsom Derby runner has descended.