Is there a cure for the Derby? A dose of Epsom salts might get it moving again
What do Epsom and Cheltenham have in common, apart from giving owner Jockey Club Racecourses enormous headaches as it grapples with how to restore two of the most illustrious names in racing to former glories?
For one, both courses owe their popularity as locations for leisure pursuits to being spa towns, where the well-heeled 17th-century gentry could go to be, well, healed.
And there's some irony in the fact that it was the rise of Cheltenham as a venue for the smart set that partly caused Epsom to fall out of favour, having once been the destination of choice for such as Samuel Pepys, who found the purgative Epsom salts worked wonders on his constipation.
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