Darkness on the edge of Epsom Downs

A sub-plot to the day is the occasion of Frankie Dettori’s last ride in the Derby. He has a strong chance of success in his swansong aboard the appropriately named ‘Arrest’...

Emily Davison (1872 - 1913) is fatally injured as she tries to stop the King's horse 'Amner' on Derby Day, to draw attention to the Women's Suffragette movement. Pic: Arthur Barrett/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

If Saturday’s Epsom Derby needed a musical soundtrack, there would be a lone viable candidate. Only the menace in the theme from the film ‘Jaws’ could adequately convey the tension, anxiety and apprehension that’s torturing officials of the Jockey Club ahead of one of the most revered and relevant British sporting events of the year.

The great white shark terrorising Epsom beaches is the activist group that operates under the name ‘Animal Rising’ and who claim that they will be “disrupting the Derby to continue the conversation we started at the Grand National.” The ‘conversation’ they refer to was in fact more of a one-sided shouty monologue that climaxed in a track invasion and a 15-minute delay to the start of the race. It is believed by some within the sport that all this hurly-burly contributed to the subsequent death of Hill Sixteen at the first fence.