Suffragette suffragettes chaining themselves to railings, setting fire to post box contents, smashing windows and eventually detonating bombs. Some radical techniques used by the suffragettes were learned from Russian exiles from tsarism who had escaped to England. In 1914, at least seven churches were bombed or set on fire across the United Kingdom, including Westminster Abbey, where an explosion aimed at destroying the 700-year-old Coronation Chair, only caused minor damage. One suffragette, Emily Davison, died under the King's horse, Anmer, at The Derby on 4 June 1913. It is debated whether she was trying to pull down the horse, attach a
Hard Ridden 2000 Guineas and won impressively by four lengths from the future Irish Derby winner, Sindon, with Paddy's Point third. The favourite for the Derby, Alcide, was withdrawn from the race after being “got at” (deliberately injured) in his stable, leaving the race looking very open. Hard Ridden, however, as the son of a sprinter, was thought unlikely to be effective over one and a half miles and started at 18/1 in a field of twenty in front of a crowd estimated at 200,000 including the Queen. Ridden by the fifty-one-year-old Charlie Smirke, Hard Ridden was held up in the early