CROWD ESTIMATED AT 100,000

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24895, 7 June 1946, Page 5

CROWD ESTIMATED AT 100,000

HEAVY RAIN BEFORE RACE (N2. Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, June 5. The first arrivals at Epsom for the ■raincoat Derby” appeared at 5 a.m. nine hours before the race was due to be run They trudged through driving .rain to vantage points. Crowds began streaming to the course from 9 o’clock onwards The rain ceased at 10 o’clock and people poured through every entrance and lined the course, 15 to 20 deep, from Tattenham Comer to the finish. All the “fun of the fair” began on the Downs. The police estimated the crowd at 100.000 by 11 o’clock. The weather changed continually, rain falling within an hour While a half gale was blowing. Crowds waiting for trains to Epsom Cheered Their Majesties. Princess Elizabeth, Queen Mary, and the Duchess of Kent as they arrived at Victoria station and entrained for Tattenham Corner station, whence they motored, amidst cheering crowds, along the course to the Royal enclosure.

The wind, increasing in violence, uprooted tents and overturned bookmakers’ umbrellas. An immense volume of traffic thronged the approaches to the Downs, but though many cars were bogged, more than 1000 police controlling the crowds and traffic managed to keep vehicles flowing fairly freely, chiefly through using the radio from which reports were sent back to traffic headquarters every two minutes, enabling diversions to be made in congested spots. It was Scotland Yard’s trial of a scheme devised to control the Victory Parade crowds.

The weather became fine shortlv before the start of the Derby, and the face was run in sunshine. From Obscurity to Fame Although it happens only occasionally, the Derby winner Airborne flashed from comparative obscurity to fame when he brought about the downfall of the equal favourite. Gulf Stream, on Wednesday. A grey colt, Airborne is by Precipitation from Bouquet by Buchan from Hellespont by Gay Crusader from Barrier by Grey Leg from Bar the Way by Right Away from Barrisdale by Barcaldine. He is the third classic winner sired by Precipitation, one of the last sons of the great Hurry On, and now the most successful at the stud. There is no record of Airborne’s dam having raced. His frandfiam, Hellespont, won only one race.

a five furlong event for two-.year-olds at Sandown Park. She bred nothing of note, and in 1933, when in foal to Apelie, was shipped to Denmark. Bouquet, Hellespont, and Barrier were all greys, their colour being inherited from the once noted grey stallion Grey Leg, the Sire of Barrier.

Airborne was purchased as a yearling for 3300gns, Walter Earl, who trains the second horse, Gulf Stream, making the purchase. As a two-year-old he was described by one critic as a strongly-made specimen of a racehorse, witlt good action. He was 16 hands then, and it was considered that it would be the middle of this year before the colt thickened out.

• R. Perryman, who trains Airborne, was formerly first jockey to Lord Derby; but an accident necessitated his retirement from the saddle, and he commenced training in 1943. In 1944 he trained two winners of £907. Last season he trained seven winners of. £13,112, including the St. Leger winner Chamoissaire. It must be something of a record for a trainer to lead in a Derby winner, in what is only his fourth season as a trainer. As a rider he was twice second and once third. He was more successful in the One Thousand Guineas, in which he rode what were his only two classic winners.