Derby racing club’s historic men- only bash gets the whip

PRESIDED over by the Earl of Derby and held in the River Room of the Savoy Hotel, the £150-a-head black tie Derby Club Dinner is arguably the most glittering and traditional evening event in racing’s social calendar.

But this year’s gathering has precipitated a fearful row about its status as a men-only affair. The Racing Post quoted the former head of the Racehorse Owners Association, Rachel Hood, who calls it ‘damaging to racing’ and ‘an embarrassing anachronism’.

One guest — Joe Saumarez Smith, newly installed as chairman of the British Horseracing Authority — said he had been unaware that it was an all-male event and ‘would not return’ if that continued to be the case.

This, in turn, has inspired a backlash from some members of the club, which was founded in 1932 and was thereafter regularly addressed by Winston Churchill, a keen Derby Club Dinner attendee. Indeed, one member, controversial City PR man Piers Pottinger, has resigned in the wake of the row’s coverage.

Quite why Pottinger has chosen to resign is unclear. However, no other member of the club, whose gilded rollcall includes the Marquess of Blandford, Earl De La Warre, the Queen’s former representative at Ascot Sir Johnny Weatherby, and the Sangster brothers, Guy and Ben, has done likewise.

Instead, they emphasise that the club is a purely social gathering, lacking any official connection with the racing world.

‘No woman in her right mind would attend,’ one stalwart tells me. ‘It’s a lot of jolly, red-faced men getting p****d. There’s nothing stopping somebody from setting up another Derby Club.’

The Earl of Derby’s brother Peter Stanley, who runs his family’s stud in Newmarket, describes the policy of not inviting women as ‘constantly under review’, but adds: ‘My wife is a madkeen racing lady and I’ve discussed it with her many times. She has said that it’s not the sort of occasion she would want to go to.’