At Epsom Downs

The Derby that has been run 145 times at Epsom Downs, England, is a famous race, but not a fashionable one. You can say in an offhand way that you didn't have time to see the Derby this year without having people put you down as a boor. The King, for instance, didn't know till the last minute whether he would go down or not but when he looked out of the window and saw that there was a bright sun shining he decided that it might be fun. The Prince of Wales, the Duke of Connaught, the Princess Mary, and Princess Ingrid of Sweden thought so too. They all strolled around in the paddock so that the crowd could see them before they were screened off by the people who had paid two pounds apiece for their seats.

Epsom Downs is a heath where gypsies camp, the wind blows, and Londoners sometimes come for picnics. In the winter it is deserted and sinister-looking but on one day a year nearly a million people drive from all over England to see the race. Motor buses park along the last mile of the course and the spectators sit on top of them drinking champagne. This year as usual they bought luck-charms from gypsy peddlers, cheered the Prince of Wales, waved their hats at the King, and shouted as the horses went round to the start. Lord Derby's Fairway was favorite at 3 to 1.

At Epsom Downs the Derby starts at the bottom of what plainsmen would call a hill. With their necks low and their haunches spread the horses climb for half a mile while the crowd at the top of the hill ducks under the fence (it is never policed) and stands in the track watching them struggle up wearily and slowly. When the horses get to the top of the hill they race for 30 seconds on a level piece of track against the sky and the people in the grandstand can see them for the first time. Flamingo was in front with Ranjit Singh close to him; then came Port Hole and Royal Minstrel and Felstead and Sunny Trace ridden by Gordon Richards, England's premier jockey. They left the level and ran wildly downhill toward the hairpin turn called Tattenham Corner. No horse has a chance unless he is one of the first two or three to get round. Flamingo was still in front but now Felstead came round him into the turn and raced for the wire with Flamingo losing ground. Black Watch came out of the pack and pressed up along the rail to finish third.

From a box near the Prince's, Sir Hugh Cunliffe-Owen, a tall, grey-haired man, wearing a white top hat and a flower in his buttonhole, pressed through the crowd to congratulate his jockey, Henry Wragg. Owner of Felstead, Sir Hugh, collected a winner's purse of $55,000. Others, humble people carrying on difficult, dull lives, with no time to go to horse-races, had won more heavily than he on Felstead. A sailor named Masten Webb on a freight ship getting into the port of Columbo held the winning ticket, worth $1,250,000, on Felstead in the Calcutta Sweepstake. A girl named Helm who works in a London brewery won $625,000 in the Stock Exchange Pool. A stock broker had held the ticket on Black Watch (worth $10,000) but had sold it to a customer for $5.