Country Studies / Holidays / Horse

Horse-racing

Horse-racing began in the Arab countries many centuries ago. It spread to most European nations by the eighteenth century, and to the United States soon afterwards. In England, the flat racing season from march to November includes five “Classic” races – designed to test the quality of the year’s three-year-old colts and fillies. These Classics are the Two Thousand Guineas and the One Thousand Guineas, both run at Newmarket; * the Derby and the Oaks, both run at Epsom; and the St. Leger, at Doncaster. The jumping, or National Hunt season, includes the four-month period when flat racing has its annual break, so that in England the racing programme is continuous throughout the year, with at times as many as fifteen race meetings on one day. The greatest of the National Hunt races, the Grand National, is also recognized as the hardest in the world to win, for it has a considerable variety of obstacles, and also attracts a very large field of runners.

(The Everyday Encyclopedia for Every Buy anil Girl)

The Derby

The annual race for the “Derby” at Epsom race-course in Surrey is perhaps the most famous single sporting event in the whole world. The day is almost a public holiday. It is Derby Day (it takes place in the first week in June) and, attended by an army of bookmakers to record their bets, of gipsies ready to tell their fortunes, and side-show proprietors to provide amusement during the hours of waiting, thousands flock to the course, many of them apparently not all worried about whether or not they see the race that is the excuse for all the experiment. Of those who stay away, the majority, even of those who do not gamble habitually, will do so in a small way on Derby Day. Every office, club, shop and factory will run its Derby sweepstake, which you enter in the hope that you will draw the name of the winning horse out of a hat and thus win all the money contributed by the various competitors.

(Pattern of England by C. E. Eckersley and L. C. B. Seaman)

Royal Ascot * (Mid June)

Royal Ascot creates some general interest – for the racing among the racing fraternity; for its fashions and its social aspects among the general public – mainly women. It is still considered a royal occasion and a major item in the court’s summer social calendar.