All human life is present and cheerfully incorrect in William Powell Frith’s famous painting The Derby Day. Lords and ladies, rakes and scoundrels, circus performers and card sharps, high society and lowlifes and everything in between, all cheek-by-jowl at one of the very few events in Victorian Britain at which the classes mingled with relative freedom.
If Frith were to return to Epsom for the Derby next month, 167 years since the one he initially sketched in 1856, he would still find a rich assortment of characters both in the grandstands and roaming free on the Hill – with, in all likelihood, one new addition. The pink T-shirted activists from the recently-formed group Animal Rising, some of whom delayed the start of the Grand National by 15 minutes last month and also staged anti-racing protests at Ayr and Doncaster in recent weeks, are long odds-on to have Epsom on their target list too.
Animal Rising’s opposition to the use of animals for any human purpose or form of entertainment is absolute. It allows for no nuance or argument, or any appreciation of, say, the differences between an industry that breeds and rears animals for slaughter, and one that breeds and rears them to race. Every month in Britain last year, almost a million pigs were slaughtered for meat – and an average of four racehorses sustained fatal injuries while racing on the Flat, or around one for every 1,250 starts. And without the sport that created the thoroughbred breed in the first place, it would soon be extinct, because racing is what they are born and bred to do.
From the activists’ point of view, however, these distinctions are irrelevant. Protest and disruption at a showpiece event like the Grand National or Derby will garner far more publicity than a sit-in outside an abattoir. And Epsom on Derby day is, by its very nature and tradition, arguably the most obvious open goal in the whole sporting calendar for activists planning non-violent direct action.
Alongside major events like the FA Cup final, Wimbledon and the Open golf championship, the Derby is an annual fixture that needs no introduction. Unlike those other sporting crown jewels, however, anyone can turn up with a picnic and watch the Derby for free. Even with a couple of weeks’ notice of protests at the Grand National, it ultimately proved impossible to secure Aintree entirely. Epsom, with its Hill enclosure which is and always has been free to enter, is a whole new level of wide open.
And even with the FA Cup final stomping on to its turf on 3 June – thanks for that, Fifa and Qatar – the attention of millions both in the UK and around the world will still be on Epsom for the two and a half minutes it takes to run the world’s most famous Classic.
Some form of protest or disruption may well be inevitable on Derby day, a prospect that the sport’s professionals and fans have greeted with a range of emotions, from fury to frustration and occasionally a side order of bemusement too. It is entirely possible to be a racing fan and care deeply about animal cruelty, the climate crisis and inequality. As it did when Frith painted Derby day, racing still draws fans from across the social and political spectrum. The Morning Star – “for peace and Socialism” – still has a racing column for a reason.
So it could also be something to bear in mind that opposition to horse racing is nothing new. There will always be a minority in any British population that objects to its existence, and it would be a strange state of affairs if there was not. Even in the days when parliament held an annual debate on whether it should adjourn for Derby day – before voting, overwhelmingly, that it should – Sir Wilfrid Lawson, the radical Liberal MP for Carlisle, always provided robust opposition to the motion.
“It is all nonsense,” Lawson told the house in 1880. “Do not tell me they run horses for sport. If all these noblemen and gentlemen ran for nothing but sport, there would be no stakes and no added money. I say that the whole system of racing is an organised system of rascality and roguery from beginning to end.”
Chepstow 1.30 Bantry 2.05 Vidi Vici 2.40 Peachey Carnehan 3.15 Rich Rhythm 3.50 Moveonup 4.25 Ivy Avenue 4.55 Sympathise
Newcastle 1.40 Special Rate 2.15 Fourth Of July 2.50 Starlyte 3.25 Marshalled 4.00 Deluxe Range 4.35 Magic Mike 5.10 Red Vision 5.45 Tommy Time
Beverley 1.50 Rowayeh 2.25 Bombay Bazaar 3.00 Montelusa 3.35 Gustav Graves 4.10 Jazz Samba 4.45 Blueflagflyinghigh 5.20 Book Of Tales
Wetherby 4.50 Marroof 5.25 Gold Guy 6.00 Platinum Girl 6.30 Al Baahy 7.00 Morning Sun 7.30 Bert Kibbler 8.05 Swinging Eddie 8.40 Premiership
Sandown 5.40 Miss Mach One 6.15 Enochdhu (nb) 6.45 Finn’s Charm 7.15 Artistic Star 7.45 If Not Now 8.20 Gert Lush (nap)
It is only fair to note that in 1892, 45 years after the House first voted to adjourn for the Derby, Lawson finally won the debate – 144 Ayes, 158 Noes – and the tradition that the parliament would always rise for Epsom was no more.
Nearly a century and a half later, however, racing is still with us, and so too are its opponents. Infuriating and baffling though it is to many racing fans, and outnumbered 1,000-to-one as they will probably be by spectators at the Derby, Royal Ascot and elsewhere, Animal Rising’s activists are likely to be around for some time to come.
The group is not, of itself, an existential threat to racing, nor is it ever likely to be. Football now dominates the British sporting landscape as the turf once did, but racing remains one of the country’s most popular spectator sports, turning over billions of pounds annually, shifting millions of tickets and keeping around 80,000 people in full-time employment.
But it is precisely because of the Derby’s history and enduring popularity that it will be such a tempting target for protest. If it did not still pull in an audience of millions from Britain and around the world, Animal Rising would surely look elsewhere. And personally, much as I enjoy horse racing and want to see it thrive, I want to live in a country with a meaningful right to peaceful protest – about racing, the monarchy, climate change or anything else – a great deal more.
