3-016-998 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Start for the Derby - from a photograph by Mr. Herbert Watkins, 1864. 'It is a singular Turf anomaly that the greatest race in the world should be run over perhaps the worst and most dangerous course we have...The hill stops the pace so much...that the bad ones are not half weeded out by the time they reach [Tattenham] Corner. Hence jockeys too often race their horse's heads off to get well round it in the front rank, for fear of the beaten horses falling back and knocking them out of their stride at the critical moment...However, the Grand Stand folk like to see the race from end to end; and so they have their way, and many a fine animal has its chance jeopardised in consequence...For a long time no one cared to see the start; and a few years ago, we believe, that there was only an audience of three. People are more curious now on the point, since the starting question came so prominently before them, and last week there was a regiment of spectators, fully a thousand strong. As might have been expected, eight false starts proved an immense boon to them. It was after a false start that Mr. Herbert Watkins succeeded in catching one of his instantaneous photographs, in which the grey of Warrior was remarkably conspicuous'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.