THE days are gone when housewives would ask “What’s Lester riding?” before having a rare flutter, but that’s how it used to be on the first Wednesday in June.

The Derby once appealed to every section of the community, and was an event which briefly halted a nation in its tracks. Now it craves a more refined audience, eschewing its traditional midweek slot, and the expectation among those responsible for promoting it as an event is that we should be talking primarily about the sense of occasion and the merits of the horses due to line up.