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Raining
Jeffrey Bernard
I usually try to avoid the Derby. One quarter of a million people don't make for enormous comfort and the cars, coaches and buses that take them to it don't make it anything less than a claustrophobic traffic jam to get there. Of course, there are other reasons for feeling slightly nervous of the greatest race in the world — yes, I do include the Prix de L'Arc de Triomphe — and they're all to do with dreadful past associations with the contest. I'm talking about real live Derbys and not the televised variety and my first Derby in the flesh was Charlottown's year. I went there armed with £100 to put on the horse having seen it win the Lingfield Trial, changed my mind at the last moment, surprise, surprise, and ended up sodden in the rain by a fish and chip wagon trying to borrow the fare home.
In 1970,1 thought Nijinsky wouldn't stay the distance and the following year I felt too greedy to avail myself of the short but certain odds they laid about Mill Reef. At last however I've had a good Derby. This year I will not forget. I even backed the second horse, Hawaiian Sound, to win only and not for a place at the lovely odds of 25-1, and not winning a light on the animal doesn't make me feel any different about losing my head. It was still an excellent day. What made it so good was the going in style to it. After the usual impotent screaming at the traffic through Epsom we got to the car park where my hosts were giving a picnic. Previously, I'd thought that the idea of a picnic in a car park smacked of a little sordidness, but this particular car park was an alfresco Ritz. Wedged between the Rolls Royces and the Mercedes was a catering wagon groaning under a load of rare beef, champagne and strawberries and God knows what else including gulls eggs, anything you cared to drink plus buckets of ice. Surrounding these vehicles were the top hatted brigade punctuated by some extraordinary ordinary people like Henry Cooper and the black visored villain from Star Wars.
Henry Zeisel, who owned Rheingold, beaten a head by Roberto in the 1972 Derby, was talking to Barry Hills, the trainer of Sexton Blake and Hawaiian Sound and I should have seen that as an omen. Hawaiian Sound's American jockey's wife, Mrs Shoemaker, looking incredibly glamorous was there as was Whitstead's owner, Harry Demetriou alongside the owner of the favourite, Inkerman, Simon Fraser. Usually slightly suspicious of such gatherings, I was surprised at the absence of toffee on my neighbouring noses. At one point, in spite of a pretty blue sky, someone standing next to me suddenly said, 'Oh God. It's started to rain,' only to discover that the source of the wetness came from nearby glasses of fizzing champagne. I have to admit that there was one brief moment when I felt close to tears and sobs of selfpity and envy when I took a look around and thought, 'God almighty, I'm never going to have any money,' but luckily the feeling evaporated with the bubbly quite quickly.
After the picnic I went up in the lift to a box as near the winning post as you could wish to be. It was marvellous to be out of the crowd milling below and almost steaming with the jostling. The Epsom grandstand is damn-nigh being a disgrace. It is due for rebuilding but at the moment it resembles a gigantic Victorian public lavatory. Still from my position it was, for a change, a lot better than the usual television set view. (Sir John Betjeman, for all I know, is probably fighting grimly for the preservation of the wretched edifice at this moment.) A further bonanza was persuading an official to let me creep out on to the roof of the stand where the cameras pick up the end of the race and the view was superb and uninterrupted.
It turned out to be one of the best Derbys I've ever seen, alongside Sir Ivor's, Sea Bird II's and Roberto's — with two furlongs to go it took me at least five seconds to work out the simple sum of just what ten multiplied by twenty-five would be. Normally fairly phlegmatic on such occasions — thanks to years of practice in the art of losing without being seen to cry — I found myself shouting at Mr Shoemaker and Hawaiian Sound as they vainly covered the last hundred yards.
After it was all over, I even found myself feeling sorry for the trainer, Barry Hills, and the other connections of the animal. Then it occurred to me that the owner of the second got £30,000 anyway. However you look at it that's not bad for being beaten. The horse must be worth more than a million pounds now and it seems highly likely that it might be third time lucky for Barry Hills next year.
If you'll forgive the presumption at such an incredibly early date, they tell me that Barry's yard is harbouring a brother of Hawaiian Sound called Horos who's even better and expected to oblige in next year's Derby, the two hundredth of its running.
Even on the bicentenary of the race I suppose it's too much to ask of the Jockey Club to show a little imagination in publicising the event with the odd poster or something like they do in France so well. Of course it is. Meanwhile, let's hope Horos has a lovely autumn and happy new year.
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