THE Derby may not always live up to its billing as the premier Flatracing classic, but the 1953 iteration certainly did. A memorable day on the Epsom Downs almost provided a winner for the newly crowned Elizabeth II with Aureole, only four days after the coronation.
The young Queen’s chief racing enthusiasm was for the Flat (unlike the Queen Mother, who largely owned steeplechasers) and her special interest lay in Thoroughbred bloodlines; she wanted to breed a Derby winner. Aureole, however, was bred by her father, George VI, by the 1933 Derby winner Hyperion,