Epsom Races – A French Perspective

The Epsom Races
(An extract from L’Illustration, Journal Universel 1856 by Armand de Barenton, Translated by Meg Bower)

The Epsom races began this year in fine weather. Unfortunately right after the Derby, the best moment of the day, when the mingled gentlemen and grooms were exchanging despicable remarks and punches, were already coming to the bottles, at last were giving the French witnesses of these joys – (national, they say) – the pure blood spectacle, heavy rain came to sober up a bit those who were not yet dead drunk; so the joke boiled down to us seeing gentlemen, grooms and beggars slipping, falling and rolling in the same mud.

It’s usually said : at Ascot, at Hampton Court, at Newmarket, the races are without particular character, there the gentleman rule. But at Epsom, it is there that merge in a common passion, in a unique feeling, all classes of the English nation.

This overpowering passion, this endemic feeling, it is the feeling, or rather the “horse frenzy”, which, at a given moment, carries an entire people in the same dizziness.

They are wrong : first Epsom is not a national holiday, no more than the Mardi Gras is for us. Not everybody goes to Epsom, far from it; all classes of English society are probably represented, but by exception; the others stray there once in their life, out of curiosity.

And now, this noble passion which they attribute to the sportsmen of Epsom must be reduced to its true value. The horse and his real merits are very much a secondary question for the majority of those who follow the races with a feverish interest.

If there is a common feeling to this whole crowd, it is the passion for gambling, and the drunkenness.

Drink! Drink! This crowd drinks constantly and everywhere.

They leave London at eleven o’clock; thousands of carriages of all kinds cover the road. You see them soon in large groups stopping at each ale-house : fiacres, cabs, calèches, carts or four-in-hands.

The distance from London to Epsom is very short; a good horse covers it in less than an hour.

After ten minutes travelling, your coachman stops. You are a foreigner; he puts you in the picture graciously :

Here, he tells you, one gets out and drinks; it is ‘very respectable’.

You get out; it is a dreadful bar. Everybody drinks at the counter, the coachmen drink beer or gin, the gentlemen port, ale, often even brandy. They carry sherry to the women in the carriages, then they set off again.

And five times at least, before you get there, you witness this ‘very respectable’ display.

At Epsom the racecourse is huge; in the middle and all around stand a city of tents, all half stables, half refreshment tents. In some you find bread in small quantities, and also large joints of meat; but everywhere they drink and everywhere there are constantly three or four waiting for a glass.

Here the gentleman disdains the refreshment tent, they have brought food in the carriages, wines from France, especially Champagne; they drink a lot of it, they lose still more in the chaos of a suburban bacchanal. Then they cry, they fall, they injure themselves, they fight, they hit the women who well deserve it, moreover; and as long as there remains a glimmer of reason, they bet; they bet with the first person to come along, with a coachman, if sometimes there happens to be a lone one who leaves the refreshment tent for a moment.

In the pavilions and in the stands, they drink less and they gamble more: here is the serious side of betting. Enormous fortunes are won and lost. It’s like seeing and hearing our players at La Bourse; things are moving, in fact, just as fast.

At the foot of the main stand is a rather broad area of turf protected by barriers. In the middle is a basket similar to that of the brokers, and around which are crowded the heavy gamblers.

Then, supported on the ramp of the staircase of the stand, the secondary gamblers communicate with the crowd. All holding their book, scribbling furiously, offering their hat to accept commitments. Everybody fidgets, all the cries mingle: I bet against! … I bet against! It is definitely the croak of the Stock Market.

On Thursday, the Derby, enormous prize whose value, since the foundation as much as the amount of the entries, rose to about 150,000 francs, was won by Ellington, a delightful animal, black, fine, nervous, who, in one leap, at the last moment ruined many gamblers, if I judge by the noise they made, poor people who, for twenty seconds, believed themselves to be rich men and victors with Cannobie.

I shall not deal at any length with the technical ups and downs of the race, nor the pedigree of Ellington, I am obliged to confess that I have never worn either green voile, or brown voile, or blue voile; I am even resigned never to carry my binoculars. So I will tell you only what I have from reliable people, to know that Ellington is of good breeding; that in London he was poorly rated, and in Paris not at all.

The Derby is the big affair. The races which followed resembled all the others, and, for those who do not bet, are perfectly insignificant.

Moreover, the rain was falling, and all interest had already turned to the drunkards who, on all sides, through slippery mud, attempted a steeplechase towards their carriages, the mishaps of which lacked dignity and grace.

Then, not without disorder, the return began. Some were dead drunk and remained, in spite of the rain, with head and arms hanging out of the carriages. Those who survived put on false noses, exchanged jokes and projectiles; the women, standing in carriages, stood up to the rudest of them. All along the road, the small children followed and shouted: “Hurrah!” The women positioned themselves at the windows, smiling and blowing kisses, and from time to time they stopped, they alighted and they drank at the bar just as they did on the way.

The coachman said it again each time :

“Here they drink, here any good Englishman must drink.”

And they drank, and it was always, as he said, ‘very respectable’.

We got hooked up with some carriages, squashed two or three horses, some men were badly stunned; but an Englishman assured us that this return journey was exceedingly subdued: the rain had thrown a tinge of sadness on this little holiday.

L’Illustration, Journal Universel
1856 p400