SPECTATOR SPORT
Epsom sorts
Frank Keating
Iam not a racing man, though I have enjoyed talking in small doses down the years to small jockeys — wizened, wasted, little obsessives with waxwork faces. I haven't even bothered with the Derby for some years now. I suppose I'll switch on the box on Wednesday afternoon if there's nothing better to do — like, say, a Win dowlene job to buff up the screen ready for the next day's first Test from Trent Bridge. In all, I must have been down to the Downs on the Day about a dozen times, mostly during my giggling, freeloading years as an ITV smarmer. We had the Epsom contract, and little else, and one of my jobs was to 'liaise' (shiny-shoed, and Mossed and Brossed to the hilt) with some Head of Protocol in the Royal Box who would tell us how many cameras we could point at the Queen during her carriage convoy up the course; and threaten us with the Tower if we so much as showed for a split second Princess Margaret twisting a ciggie into her holder.
The race itself, mind you, is an eruptive, palpitating, thrill. From the grandstand, the field careers down the distant hill like a toppling, multi-coloured carnival float; only when they have turned the corner and the necklace strings out do you realise they're horses down there. A few times I watched from our camera position at Tat- tenham Corner itself: a momentary explo- sion, a great, collective, frothing pant, and they're gone in a whip-pan whirl, a kaleidoscope of colours and curses; and an enthralling roll of thunder that judders the earth. That's it — and the crowd waits for ages to hear which has won.
Gordon Richards only won one Derby — his last, on Pinza in 1953 — and once told me it was many years after his retire- ment that he realised why he had always picked such duff rides for the biggie. 'Only in hindsight did I see I'd gone for things which always led with the right foot. Fatal for Tattenham Corner. That's why half my mounts always seemed to want to end up down the hill at the railway station. So never ever back a right-footer for the Derby.' Sir Gordon said everyone accused him of having an inferiority complex about Derby Day — 'Wrong: after those first seven furlongs, it's never the jocks with the inferiority complex, it's just the horses.'
Scobie Breasley, on Santa Claus, was the first winning jockey I had to grab for interview immediately after the race. 'It's not exactly tactics.' he drawled, 'it's just getting in the right place, throwing the reins at him and saying "Let's go".' Willie Carson's Troy showed the most thrilling turn of foot I can remember. 'We were boxed, couldn't get through, and I was ready to get out the bins and watch the finish. Then, six inches of daylight. I gave him one little backhander and it was like turning on an electric light. I knew he was quick; but not as quick as that. We'd won the race in the next four or five strides.' Troy's was the biggest winning margin for half a century.
More amiably laconic than Breasley was Jack Lynch, 'It is a polo match, only with more horses. By the six-furlong gate, the sprinters have already gone, and the milers won't last much longer, although they are still getting in the way down to the Corner. It's extraordinary how many die out just after the turn for home. In a way it's a kind of relief. You know you've had it, can't do anything about it. So just relax, stand up in your stirrups, and watch the finish. If your eyesight's that good.'
Wallace Arnold is on holiday.
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