• Derby Quotes
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• We lost it on the nod, We were in front one stride before the line and one stride after. So we very nearly won the Derby.   Peter Winfield owner of Silver Patriach.
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• My attitude, because I am a positive thinker, was that we nearly won. But what a gallant loser Silver Patriach was. Itcertainly made the Derby for all those present and the millions that watched on TV. My horse contributed to racing that day.  Peter Winfield.
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• The last few days before Epsom felt like the days before Christmas when I was a child. The Marchioness of Tavistock.
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• It’s a great thrill, maybe the greatest, to win the Derby. I’ve been lucky enough to win some big races all around the world, but there is something extra special about winning the Derby. Michael Stoute, trainer of Shergar.
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• There are lots of races around the world – like the Kentucky Derby, which is also a great race – but there’s nothing like the Derby. Aidan O’brien, trainer of Galileo
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• The Derby remains the most prestigious event in the flat racing calendar, sustained by centuries of history and tradition. Our six winners of the race are an enduring source of pride, each evoking very different memories. From my first runner Ballymoss, who was second to Crepello in 1957, to my last , Fatherland (in 1993), the Derby has never failed to exert it’s magic. Vincent O’brien, nuff said.
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• I always tried to keep big races like the Derby on a business footing and maintain a sense of perspective. The most important thing is to think of it as just another race – emotion must not come into it. Ernie Johnson, Derby winning Jockey on Blakeny.
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• Winning the Derby was the greatest feeling in the world, one of sheer elation. As I went past the post I felt that I had earned my place in the history books even if I didn’t achieve another thing in the future. Ernie Johnson again, failing to take his own advice.
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• I felt myself beginning to be overcome by the knowledge of what had just taken place. In order to return to the unsaddling enclosure before the tears of joy ran down my face, I did my best to think of anything but the fact that my ultimate dream had just come true. It is difficult to put into words the elation I felt at the time – it was of course, simply the pinnacle of my career. Edward Hide, Derby winning jockey on Morston.
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• It’s not just my dream – it is the dream every jockey on the planet. Everybody wants to win the Derby because it is simply the best race in the world. Frankie Dettori, Derby winning Jockey.
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• The Thoroughbred exists not because its selection has depended experts, technicians or zoologists but one piece of wood: the winning post of the Epsom Derby. Frederico Tesio, Italian breeder.
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• Amato never ran again after his 1938 Derby victory, and eventually was buried at the Durdans. One of the local inns had its name altered to ‘The Amato’ and a legend was nurtured that at dawn on each Derby Day the name of the winner would be chalked up on the side of a well outside the inn. Derby historian, Michael Seth Smith.
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• Everyone thrilled by the Derby should walk the course just once. It is an amazing experience. The Marchioness of Tavistock
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• They all get exited about the Arc, the Breeders Cup and the Dubai World Cup, but the Derby will always be number one in my book. The unique gradients of the course mean a horse has to be able to lead on both legs, hold a stride and posess a perfect blend of speed and stamina. Where else do you have to cross two roads in a race.  Jimmy Lindley, Former Jockey.
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• The Derby is the most famous event in the world’s racing calendar and I send my best wishes for a successful bicentenary. I shall look forward to being present again. H M the Queen
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• The Derby is not only the greatest and most prestigious horse-race in the world, it is a British institution with a hold on the public well beyond the world of racing. Alistair Burnet.
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• The fact that the word ‘Derby’ signifies the supreme race in many countries around the world can mean only one thing – that the Epsom Derby was at the beginning and always has been the touchstone of a champion. Paul Mellon, owner of Mill Reef.
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• Anyone who does not consider the Epsom Derby one of the greatest sporting events in the world muste out of her mind. John Gabreath, owner of Roberto
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• The Derby is a little like your first experience of sex – hectic, strenuous, memorably pleasant and over before you know it. American writer, Bill Bryson.
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• And as a spectacle, for it certainly is one , the scene at Epsom on Derby Day is the finest of all spectacles in the calendar.  The Times 1921
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• Sponsored or un sponsored, may it (the Derby) continue forever, for surely it has been sponsored by heaven from the beginning. Paul Mellon
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• The road to Epsom was crowded with all descriptions of people hurtling to the races; some to plunder and some to be plundered. Horses, gigs, curricles, coaches, chaises, carts and pedestrians covered with dust crowded the Downs, the people running, jostling each other as they made contact. The Times, 1793
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• There is no such race as the Epsom Derby. What’s run at Epsom is THE DERBY; its imitators are the ones that require geographical qualifiers. Journalist, Paul Haigh
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• The Highway to Epsom was covered with vehicles of  every description between and beyond adennes and a dog-cart. Travelling  necessarily became slow and dangerous. The venturesome and impatient continually broke through the line, and produced the greatest confusion. Traces were broken, panels driven in, chaises overturned, shafts shattered, and toll-bars defied and dislocated. In fact, from Kensington Gate to the racecourse there was but one unbroken line of dust, din and disturbance. The Times 1837
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• Epsom Downs on Derby Day is the most astonishing, the most varied, the most glorious spectacle that ever was or ever can be, under any circumstances visible to the mortal eye. Illustrated London News
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• A few minutes, only a few minutes and the event, that for twelve months has been the pivot of so much calculation, of such subtle combinations, of such deep conspiracies, round which the thought of passion of the sporting world have hung like eagles, will be recorded in the fleeting tablets of the past. But what minutes! Count them by sensation, and each moment is a day and the race a life. Benjamin Disraeli
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• At an early hour London, like a huge leviathan, poured forth its thousands for this metropolitan jubilee, and the country for miles around contributed its quota to swell the crowd. The road, as usual was one of splendid confusion, and there were the customary delays, squabbles and mishaps. The Times 1828
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• No fantasy is more unlikely, or more probable, than the Derby, a race which is perpetual, unmatched, immortal. Alistair Burnett
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• They do not swarm to Epsom like they used to, of course. But then, when it was in midweek, it was perceived as the annual skive, the great Londoners’ day out; rarely have so many grandmothers been buried on the first Wednesday in June. Journalist, Nick Townsend.
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• I could not imagine that anyone with a sense of Englishness would not want to go to the Derby. I could not imagine that anyone with a feel for sport would not find , in the Derby, one of the year’s perfect moments. In the great crowd and the great race I found, not a single entity, but separate forces of comparable power. Journalist, Laura Thompson.
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• On the Derby morning, all London wakes at cockcrow. The first flicker of light breaks upon thousands of busy men in misty stables…breaks upon lines of loaded pedestrians footing it from London, to turn a penny at the great event. Blanchard Jerrold 1872
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• There is something magical about Derby Day. It is, and always has been, a day for everyone, and it does not matter what clothes you are dressed in, from morning suits down to singlet and shorts. Peter Walwyn, trainer of Grundy
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• On the train to Tattenham Corner there was the usual sense of wonder about the willingness of so many people to settle for being somewhere other than Epsom  on this afternoon. Glimpses of men hoeing vegetable patches, of women hanging out clothes, or of clerks and executives in dark suits steering briefcases through sweating crowds at East Croydon, evoked a strange presumptuous sympathy.
•      The physical reality of the Derby is so magical for some of us that we are inclined to feel sorry for anyone who misses out on it. We find it hard to accept there are millions who atre happy to take a less intimate, more ephemeral pleasure from the event, for whom the Derby is a momentary thrill, a fleeting blur of excitement that brightens a working week, a parade watched from an office or factory window. Journalist , Hugh Mcilvenny.
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• The tradition and history behind the Derby, as with the Grand National, are so powerful that I get a cold shiver down my spine every time I go to Epsom, one of the foremost shrines of racing. Peter Walwyn
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• On Derby Day a population  rolls and surges and scrambles through the place that may be counted in millions. Charles Dickens.
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• And finally
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• And so towards Epsom, talking all the way pleasantly. The country very fine, only, the way very dusty. We got to Epsom by eight o’clock to the Well, where much company; and there we alighted and I drank the water; they did not, but did go about and walk a little among the women, but I did drink four pints and had some very good stools by it. Samuel Pepys, 14 July 1667, in praise of the efficacy of the Epsom waters, the discovery of which, early in the seventeenth century, led to the development of racing there and ultimately the creation of the Derby

These Quotes come from from the Vodafone book of Derby Quotations