ENGLAND, OUR ENGLAND
The Derby, the St. Leger, The Oaks, and, of course, the Royal meeting at Ascot were peaks of national excitement.
The dandy, a silk scarf wound around his top hat and trailing like a pennant in the wind, lolling against a barouche, cigar dangling from his lips, a set of splendid seals hanging from the watch-chain on his snowy waistcoat front, casts a supercilious glance at the ragged, shoeless girl trying to interest him in her wares… while unseen, beneath the carriage wheels, another urchin is reaching out to steal a bottle of champagne.
An infant acrobat, lost in dreamy contemplation of the pie and lobster being set out for a picnic lunch, forgets that he is to perform some feat of agility. The thimble rigger is busy practising his art, inviting bystanders to try their luck and find the pea hidden beneath one of the small cups he moves around a small collapsible table, and it seems he has found a victim, as one of the onlookers has a crisp white banknote in his hand.
These are just a couple of the characters that people William Powell Frith’s masterpiece, Derby Day. A mid 19th-century scene preserved for ever, locked into the oil paint that covers the vast canvas: Frith achieved with a brush what Dickens managed with a pen. More than just a record of an event, he captures the very spirit of the sport of kings; the sense of occasion, the spectacle and sartorial opportunities offered to students of the turf.
Attendance at racecourses and proximity to horseflesh seems to loosen inhibitions and
