Racing rivals for the ages neither judge nor history can separate

The year 1910 - Leo Tolstoy, Mark Twain and triple Derby-winning owner King Edward VII die; Dr Crippen is executed for murdering his wife; Sir Noel Murless, Fulke Walwyn and Phil Bull are born.

The horses Lemberg (a half-brother to the great Bayardo) and Neil Gow met four times and were the most closely matched champions in racing history. Neil Gow had been the champion two-year-old of 1909, beating Lemberg into third place in the Champagne Stakes, and he shaded that rival by a short head in a magnificent duel for the 1910 2,000 Guineas. But in the Derby, after an interrupted preparation, he finished fourth as Lemberg triumphed. Derby winners were not kept in cotton wool in those days and, between Epsom and the Eclipse, Lemberg won the St James's Palace Stakes and was unplaced in the Grand Prix de Paris.

The people Lemberg's trainer, Alec Taylor of Manton, was in the third of his record 12 championship seasons, and his jockey, the unreliable Bernard Dillon, was scandalously living openly with his mistress (and future wife), music-hall star Marie Lloyd. Neil Gow had a Derby-winning trainer, Percy Peck, and his jockey, brilliant dual champion Danny Maher, was perhaps America's greatest gift to the British turf.