Derby Day Dozen.

Member’s enclosure, Derby Day, Epsom. © David Secombe 1991.

Interview with Alfred Hitchcock, New York Times, 19 March 1939*:

Apparently no Hitchcock interview is ever complete without Mr. Hitchcock’s latest idea for a picture he would like to make – some time. Today he has in mind a picture built around the English Derby – Derby Day. “Can there be anything more exciting or dramatic than a million people all gathered together in one afternoon – all sorts of people, from top to bottom – just to witness the running of a race? I always liken it to the Judgment Day. Well, I should like to sift, say, a dozen characters from that crowd and, within the limits of an hour and a half on that fatal afternoon, tell their stories, climaxed by the finish of the race.” It sounds like a great idea – maybe too great, because, unfortunately, Mr. Hitchcock never seems to get around to doing those pictures he dreams about.

© David Secombe 1991.

© David Secombe 1991.

© David Secombe 1991.

© David Secombe 1991.

© David Secombe 1991.

© David Secombe 1991.

© David Secombe 1991.

© David Secombe 1991.

© David Secombe 1991.

© David Secombe 1991.

Runners on their way to the starting gate, Epsom Derby, 1991. © David Secombe 1991.

DS: Tomorrow sees the running of The Derby at Epsom, the original Derby anything, founded in 1780, and still the richest horse race in Britain. Once run mid-week, since 1995 it has been a Saturday fixture, the rescheduling an indication of its decline as an event. No-one seems entirely sure why it has lost its popularity. Hitchcock’s comment reflects the notion of the Derby current in the Victorian and Edwardian eras: London on the Downs, the city decamping en masse for a day at the races. This was the Derby Day of Dickens, William Frith, or the doomed suffragette Emily Davison. As a schoolboy in Epsom during the 1970s, I recall the frightening volume of humanity that appeared on the first Wednesday in June … but that excitement and sense of occasion has simply withered. These images are of Derby Day in 1991, taken whilst working alongside Eddie Mirzoeff’s documentary team  (see below) and show only the elaborately hatted zone of the grandstand. The modern version of Frith’s Victorian painting is a glorious documentary by Charlie Squires of the 1970 Derby: I have hunted YouTube to locate this but to no avail. I would dearly love to see that film again: instead, here is footage of the 1970 race, won in legendary fashion by Lester Piggott on Nijinsky:

The 1991 Derby was won by ‘Generous’, ridden by Alan Munro. From Elizabeth R, prod. E, Mirzoeff, BBC, 1992 – video no. 3 in sequence:

* Thanks to The Hitchcock Zone.