Epsom Downs Racecourse the turf. In the summer of 1779 Edward Smith-Stanley, 12th Earl of Derby, organised a race for himself and his friends to race their three-year-old fillies. He named it the Oaks after his nearby estate. The race became so successful that in the following year 1780 a new race was added for three-year old colts and fillies—-the Derby. In 1784 the course was extended to its current distance of a mile and a half and Tattenham Corner was introduced. Henry Dorling, step-father to cookery writer Mrs Beeton, was a Clerk of the Course at Epsom, appointed in 1840. In 1913
Hawthorne Race Course track has a one-mile (1.6 km) dirt oval and a seven-furlong turf oval. The main track home stretch is 1,320 feet, one of the longest in the country. The track runs the following graded stakes: Hawthorne also runs the ungraded Bill Hartack Memorial Handicap, which was inaugurated in 2008 and was originally called the National Jockey Club Handicap, as well as the Hawthorne Derby which carried Grade 3 status through 2017. Hawthorne Race Course Hawthorne Race Course is a racetrack for horse racing in Stickney/Cicero, Illinois, near Chicago. The oldest continually run family-owned racetrack in North America, in 2009 the