Many of the fascinating, exhilarating and in some cases romantic stories in the Derby revolve around the horses, and let's face it without them we would have no Derby at all. Here are a selection of the narratives that surrounds them.
One of the more controversial ones surrounds Craganour in 1913 who to this day remains the only winner to have been disqualified from winning the race for an incident in running and it was that Derby which saw suffragette Emily Davison killed when she ran in front of King George V horse Anmar at Tattenham Corner. One of the iconic images of recent years in the Derby (1981) was the sight of the ill-fated Shergar cruising up the Epsom home straight in cruise-control. He remains the widest margin winner of the race and his 10 length margin will take some beating. There was nothing like that margin between the winner and second when Benny The Dip prevailed in 1997, that being the shortest winning distance in recent history, although there have been two dead-heats in 1828 and 1884; both of course before photo finish cameras.
Greys always tend to find a special empathy with the betting public and there have been four winners of that colour, the last being Airborne in 1946 – he was quite well named and attracted plenty of Derby bets as his win came directly after the end of WW2. In recent years greys have only managed a couple of places, with Terimon and Silver Patriach in 1989 and1997, the latter being just touched off by a short head by the aforementioned Benny The Dip a finish of short-heads. Last year not only did the winner Workforce become the first horse to be beaten in the Dante and come on and win a Derby but he also smashed Lammtarra’s course record set in 1995 by over a second.
Although the fillies have their own Classic over course and distance the ladies are allowed to take on the gents in the Derby but the last time the "girls" were victorious was way back in 1916 and the most recent filly to try – Cape Verdi – in 1998, despite starting 11/4 favourite finished a disappointing 9th.
And finally, we couldn’t resist one of the quirky stories behind the Derby – when Quest For Fame won in 1990 it meant that there were only three letters of the alphabet that had not had a Derby winner starting with their letter. So keep an eye on anything starting with the letters U, X and Z in this year’s race.
