Facts and Figures

The Race

The race would be known as the Bunbury had Lord Derby not won the toss of a coin with Sir Charles Bunbury to decide who should give his name to the race.
From 1915 to 1918 the race took place at Newmarket and was called the New Derby Stakes.
1901 was the first year in which a mechanical starting gate was used.
Diomed was the first winner of the Derby in 1780, when the race was run over 1m. It has been 1m4f since 1784.
The Derby was run for the first time on a Saturday in 1995 after being switched from its traditional Wednesday date.
The largest Derby field was 34 in 1862 and the smallest was just four in 1794. There is now a safety limit of 20.
The three longest-priced Derby winners started at 100-1. They were Jeddah in 1898, Signorinetta in 1908 and Aboyeur in 1913. The biggest outsider to win in more recent times was Snow Knight at 50-1 in 1974.
The longest-priced placed horse was the Clive Brittain-trained Terimon, who was 500-1 when second to Nashwan in 1989.
Ladas, who won the race in 1894, is still the shortest-priced winner of the Derby, having been sent off at 2-9. The most recent odds-on winner was Shergar at 10-11 in 1981 while the most recent odds-on loser was Entrepreneur, who was only fourth at 4-6 behind Benny The Dip in 1997.
In the past 38 runnings of the Derby, the race has gone to the first or second favourite 25 times.
Snow hit in the race in 1867, and rain caused 13 false starts in 1830, but the worst weather related incident was a violent storm that saw 62mm of rain fall in 30 minutes in 1911.
The first Derby to be broadcast by the BBC took place in 1927.

Horses

Craganour in 1913 is the only Derby winner to have been disqualified for an incident in the race, when the prize was awarded to Aboyeur. That Derby was one of the most dramatic of all time, as suffragette Emily Davison was killed when she ran in front of King George V's horse, Anmer, at Tattenham Corner.
Amato, the 1838 winner, never raced before or after winning the Derby.
Merry Hampton (1887) is the most recent horse to win the Derby as a maiden.
In 1881, Iroquois became the first American-bred to win a leg of the British triple crown.
The 1921 winner, Humorist, tragically died just two weeks after the race.
In 1844, the original winner Running Rein was disqualified as he was actually an ineligible four-year-old horse named Maccabeus.
The great but ill-fated Shergar holds the record for the widest winning margin in the history of the blue riband event, taking the race by 10 lengths in 1981.
Benny The Dip in 1997 was the last of several horses to win the race by a short head, and there have been two dead-heats. In 1884 St Gatien and Harvester shared the prize, but in 1828 The Colonel and Cadland had a rematch later in the afternoon, with the latter winning.
Four greys have won the Derby - Gustavus in 1821, Tagalie in 1912, Mahmoud in 1936 and Airborne in 1946. Terimon, second in 1989, and Silver Patriarch, second in 1997, were the last greys to be placed.
Six fillies have won the Derby – Eleanor (1801), Blink Bonny (1857), Shotover (1882), Signorinetta (1908), Tagalie (1912) and Fifinella (1916).
The most recent filly to take part, the 1,000 Guineas winner Cape Verdi in 1998, started as 11/4 favourite but could only finish 9th.
Lammtarra recorded the fastest time in the 223-year history of the race when winning in 2min 32.31sec in 1995, beating the record set by Mahmoud in 1936 by over a second. Galileo (2001) has since recorded the second-fastest time.
Lammtarra was also the first horse to land the premier Classic on his seasonal debut since Grand Parade in 1919. Amazingly, Shaamit achieved the same feat the following year.
Quest For Fame's victory in 1990 meant there are now only three letters of the alphabet with which a Derby winner's name has not begun! Quest For Fame was the first Q, but there have so far been no Derby winners with the initials U, X and Z.
2003 victor Kris Kin was the first Derby winner to be supplemented for the race. Although he was included in the original entry, he was withdrawn at the end of his two-year-old career before being added back into the field at a cost of £90,000 a few days before the race.
One Derby runner who achieved lasting fame over jumps was Sea Pigeon, who won the Champion Hurdle twice after finishing seventh to Morston in the 1973 Epsom Classic. Lester Piggott was 15th on Prince Charlemagne in the 1953 Derby and rode him to victory in the Triumph Hurdle nine months later.

Jockeys

Lester Piggott was 18 when he won on Never Say Die in 1954 and he rode in the race 36 times, winning an unequalled nine times. His last victory was on Teenoso in 1983.
Steve Cauthen was the first jockey to ride the winner of the Kentucky Derby and the Derby. He rode Affirmed to win at Churchill Downs on the way to the US Triple Crown in 1978, and landed the Epsom Classic on Slip Anchor in 1985 and Reference Point in 1987.
The oldest winning jockey was John Forth, who was at least 60 when he won on Frederick in 1829, while the youngest was John Parsons, who was believed to be 16 when he won on Caractacus in 1862.
Frankie Dettori had a long wait for his first Derby but Sir Gordon Richards waited longer. His win on Pinza in 1953 was his 28th attempt.
Pyrrhus The First won the 1846 Derby, beating the John Scott-ridden Sir Tatton Sykes. Scott was so drunk he couldn't steer the horse!
In 1996, Alex Greaves became the first (and so far only) lady jockey to ride in the race - she finished last on the filly Portuguese Lil.

Trainers

Three trainers trained a record seven Derby winners - Robert Robson, John Porter and Fred Darling. The record among current trainers is four achieved by Henry Cecil with Slip Anchor (1985), Reference Point (1987), Commander In Chief (1993) and Oath (1999).
Vincent O'Brien is the only living person to have trained winners of the Derby, Grand National and Cheltenham Gold Cup. Larkspur (1962) was the first of his six Derby winners and he won the National three times and the Gold Cup four times.
Aidan O'Brien (no relation to Vincent) saddled the first two in 2002, High Chaparral and Hawk Wing. The previous trainer to do that was Richard Carver in 1948.
Geoff Wragg's father Harry was the last person to have both trained and ridden a Derby winner. He rode Felstead to victory in 1928 but had to wait until 1961 to train Psidium to win at Epsom.
Eight Derby winners have been trained at the Ballydoyle yard in County Tipperary, Ireland. Aidan O'Brien has sent out two winners, High Chaparral and Galileo, while the previous incumbent, Vincent O'Brien, won with Larkspur, Sir Ivor, Nijinsky, Roberto, The Minstrel and Golden Fleece.

Owners

Lord Rosebery is the only person to have owned the Derby winner while Prime Minister. He won the Classic in 1894 with Ladas and the following year with Sir Visto.
The 3rd Earl of Egremont and the Aga Khan have both owned 5 winners.
Minoru's victory in 1909 was the only time the winner was owned by the reigning monarch, in this case King Edward VII. The Queen has won every Classic other than the Derby as an owner, with Aureole's second to Pinza in her Coronation year of 1953 being the closest she has managed.