A Life of Necessary Extravagance

The opening scene is the only racing content. The rest is an interview with these entitled, misguided fools on their "good incomes" of £20 a week each. He is a teacher, which gives a baseline for comparison with today.

Is it Epsom?

The race he's having his pound on is the Rosebery Memorial (2 and a quarter miles, some of which would have wound between markers in the interior of the course), on the Tuesday, the day before Sir Ivor's Derby. It was won by Great Pleasure. You can see 'Great' and 'Gaudy' (for Gaudy Commodore) and the beginning of 'Jacthelot' on the bookie's board. But the race shown is a different one (usual story with films - bits and pieces from different things mashed together to look like one continuous whole) - I think it might be the last race on the same card, a 12-runner 3yo maiden decided by a neck, with the winner ridden by Sandy Barclay. Mrs D Robinson had a newcomer (100/6) unplaced in it, and that looks like the Robinson colours (with noseband) near the back of the field.

It looks like Epsom. What we need is someone with a 1968 formbook who can work out what the commentator or the young lad say. It sounded like Pandora's Bay but I'd not swear to it.

The winner of the maiden was Law Officer. I think the boy is probably shouting something else - he probably couldn't tell what won from his position, or even what was in contention. Law Officer was 'brown', and the winner on the rail looks just about dark enough to be classified so, imo. The only issue I have is that there could be more than 12 runners in the film, but it's hard to say. Few races at the meeting had double figure fields (apart from the Derby and Oaks, and it's neither of them), and all the other double figure field races at the meeting were won by 2 lengths or more, and the one in the film wasn't.

It was certainly a day of incidents on the track. In the long distance race (the Rosebery Memorial), 4 of the 10 horses came down on the infield (which probably helped to get the configuratiuon, and distance, banned). The winner, Great Pleasure, had run in the previous year's Derby, where he had held up the start having been reluctant to go in the stalls (the first year they were used for the race). He continued to show a dislike of the stalls, but it didn't matter this day, as they weren't used for this unusual race.

In the previous race on the card, (in which Crooner beat Right Tack), Geoff Lewis hit the deck when the saddle slipped on 1/3 fav War Lass. (only 5 runners). This was a 5f race for 2yos, another thing you don't see at Epsom any more. Geoff Lewis won the 2000 Guineas on Right Tack the following year.

The film appears to show another horse without a rider.