1.
Epsom Downs Racecourse
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Epsom Downs is a Grade 1 racecourse located in Epsom, Surrey, England which is used for thoroughbred horse racing. The Downs referred to in the name are part of the North Downs and it also hosts the Oaks Stakes for three-year-old fillies, and the Coronation Cup for horses aged four years and upwards. All three races are Group 1 races and run over the course and distance. The course, owned by the Jockey Club, has enjoyed a long association with the British Royal Family, Epsom is referenced in the diary of Samuel Pepys in 1663 and Charles II is said to have been a racegoer there. By 1684, Epsom had a clerk of the course and from 1730 was hosting twice yearly race meetings, at Epsom on 3 May 1769 the famous racehorse Eclipse had the first of his many victories in an undefeated career on the turf. In the summer of 1779 Edward Smith-Stanley, 12th Earl of Derby organised a race for himself and he named it the Oaks after his 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, in 1913 the suffragette Emily Davison threw herself in front of King George Vs horse Anmer, bringing him down. Davison was badly injured and died four days later, in 1952 the racecourse was featured extensively in the film Derby Day set around the 1952 Epsom Derby. In 2009 the racecourse opened the new Duchesss Stand and it has a capacity of 11,000 and has a 960m² hall. It can be used for banqueting, conferences and exhibitions, the estimated cost of the new stand, which was built by Willmott Dixon, was £23.5 million. The racecourse is between Epsom, Tadworth and Langley Vale, as it is in a public area, people can watch the Derby free, and this meant that the Derby used to be the most attended sporting event of the year. It presents a challenge for inexperienced horses and a true test of stamina for those that might previously have contested the 2,000 Guineas Stakes over a mile. Epsom Downs houses the third largest racehorse training facility in the country, the facility is managed by the Epsom trainers society. There are 11 trainers who use the facility, including Simon Dow, the area is served by the Epsom Downs railway line as well as Tattenham Corner railway station which is where Queen Elizabeth II alights from the British Royal Train on race days. Other races Epsom Dash Holland, Anne, official site Course guide on GG. COM Course guide on At The Races
2.
Epsom
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Epsom is a market town in Surrey, England,13.6 miles south south-west of London, located between Ashtead and Ewell. The town straddles chalk downland and the upper Thanet Formation, Epsom Downs Racecourse holds The Derby, now a generic name for sports competitions in English-speaking countries. The town also gives its name to Epsom salts, extracted from mineral waters there, Epsom is the source of the Hogsmill River and includes the semi-rural Horton and Langley Vale. Epsom lies within the Copthorne Hundred used for periodic, strategic meetings of the wealthy and powerful in Anglo-Saxon England, the name of Epsom is early recorded as forms of Ebbas ham. Many Spring line settlements by springs in Anglo-Saxon England were founded at the foot of dry valleys such as here and Effingham, Bookham, Cheam, Sutton, Carshalton, Croydon, a relic from this period is a 7th-century brooch found in Epsom and now in the British Museum. Epsom appears in Domesday Book of 1086 as Evesham, held by Chertsey Abbey. Its domesday assets were,11 hides,2 churches,2 mills worth 10 shillings,18 ploughs,24 acres of meadow, woodland worth 20 hogs, altogether it rendered £17 per year to its overlords. The town at the time of Domesday Book had 38 households, at various dates in the Middle Ages, manors were founded by subinfeudation at Epsom Court, Horton, Woodcote, Brettgrave and Langley Vale. Under Henry VIII and Queen Mary the manor passed to the Carew then related Darcy families and it passed via the Mynne, Buckle and Parkhurst families to Sir Charles Kemys Tynte and after his death to Sir Joseph Mawbey. By the end of the Georgian period, Epsom was known as a spa town, remnants of this are its water pump and multiple exhibits in the towns museum. There were entertainments at the Assembly Rooms, a green-buffered housing estate has now been built upon the wells in the south-west of the town. Epsom salts are named after the town, Epsom salt was originally prepared by boiling down mineral waters which sprung at Epsom. The towns market is built on the pond that existed in the Middle Ages, within the centuries-old boundaries is Epsom Downs Racecourse which features two of the five English Classic horse races, The Derby and The Oaks, which were first run in 1780 and 1779 respectively. On 4 June 1913, Emily Davison, a militant womens suffrage activist, stepped in front of King George Vs horse running in the Derby, sustaining fatal injuries. Lord Rosebery remained closely associated with the town throughout his life, leaving land to the borough, commemorated in the names of roads, Rosebery Park. A house was named after him at Epsom College, one of Britains public schools in Epsom. A bell was added in 1867, by 1902 the lions had been replaced by lanterns, and the toilet buildings added either side of the tower. The Epsom Playhouse was opened in 1984 and is run by Epsom, the Ashley Centre, a shopping mall, was built in the early 1980s and subsequently parts of the high street were pedestrianised as part of the construction of the towns one-way system
3.
Thoroughbred
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The Thoroughbred is a horse breed best known for its use in horse racing. Although the word thoroughbred is sometimes used to refer to any breed of purebred horse, Thoroughbreds are considered hot-blooded horses that are known for their agility, speed, and spirit. The Thoroughbred as it is today was developed in 17th- and 18th-century England, when native mares were crossbred with imported Oriental stallions of Arabian, Barb. Millions of Thoroughbreds exist today, and around 100,000 foals are registered each year worldwide, Thoroughbreds are used mainly for racing, but are also bred for other riding disciplines such as show jumping, combined training, dressage, polo, and fox hunting. Thoroughbred racehorses perform with maximum exertion, which has resulted in high accident rates, other health concerns include low fertility, abnormally small hearts and a small hoof-to-body-mass ratio. There are several theories for the reasons behind the prevalence of accidents and health problems in the Thoroughbred breed, the typical Thoroughbred ranges from 15.2 to 17.0 hands high, averaging 16 hands. They are most often bay, dark bay or brown, chestnut, black, less common colors recognized in the United States include roan and palomino. White is very rare, but is a recognized color separate from gray, the face and lower legs may be marked with white, but white will generally not appear on the body. Coat patterns that have more than one color on the body, good-quality Thoroughbreds have a well-chiseled head on a long neck, high withers, a deep chest, a short back, good depth of hindquarters, a lean body, and long legs. Thoroughbreds are classified among the breeds, which are animals bred for agility and speed and are generally considered spirited. These artificial dates have been set to enable the standardization of races, the Thoroughbred is a distinct breed of horse, although people sometimes refer to a purebred horse of any breed as a thoroughbred. The term for any horse or other animal derived from a breed line is purebred. Nonetheless, breeders of other species of purebred animals may use the two terms interchangeably, though thoroughbred is less used for describing purebred animals of other species. The term is a noun referring to this specific breed, though often not capitalized, especially in non-specialist publications. For example, the Australian Stud Book, The New York Times, flat racing existed in England by at least 1174, when four-mile races took place at Smithfield, in London. Racing continued at fairs and markets throughout the Middle Ages and into the reign of King James I of England. It was then that handicapping, a system of adding weight to attempt to equalize a horses chances of winning as well as improved training procedures, during the reigns of Charles II, William III, Anne, and George I, the foundation of the Thoroughbred was laid. Under James grandson, Charles II, a keen racegoer and owner, and James great-granddaughter Queen Anne, royal support was given to racing and the breeding of race horses
4.
Filly
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A filly is a female horse that is too young to be called a mare. There are two definitions in use, In most cases, a filly is a female horse under four years old. In some nations, such as the United Kingdom and the United States, fillies are sexually mature by two and are sometimes bred at that age, but generally, they should not be bred until they themselves have stopped growing, usually by four or five. Some fillies may exhibit estrus as yearlings, the equivalent term for a male is a colt. When horses of either sex are less than one year, they are referred to as foals, horses of either sex between one and two years old may be called yearlings
5.
Stone (unit)
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The stone or stone weight is an English and imperial unit of mass now equal to 14 pounds. The United Kingdoms imperial system adopted the wool stone of 14 pounds in 1835, with the advent of metrication, Europes various stones were superseded by or adapted to the kilogram from the mid-19th century on. The stone continues in use in Britain and Ireland used for measuring body weight. The name stone derives from the use of stones for weights, the Biblical law against the carrying of diverse weights, a large and a small is more literally translated as you shall not carry a stone and a stone, a large and a small. There was no standardized stone in the ancient Jewish world, such weights varied in quality, the Yale Medical Library holds 10 and 50-pound examples of polished serpentine, while a 40-pound example at the Eschborn Museum is made of sandstone. The English stone under law varied by commodity and in practice varied according to local standards. The Assize of Weights and Measures, a statute of uncertain date from c. In 1350, Edward III issued a new statute defining the stone weight, to be used for wool and other Merchandizes, at 14 pounds, reaffirmed by Henry VII in 1495. In England, merchants traditionally sold potatoes in half-stone increments of 7 pounds, the Oxford English Dictionary also lists, The Scottish stone was equal to 16 Scottish pounds. In 1661, the Royal Commission of Scotland recommended that the Troy stone be used as a standard of weight, the tron stone of Edinburgh, also standardised in 1661, was 16 tron pounds. In 1789, an enumeration of measurements was printed for the use of his Majestys Sheriffs and Stewards Depute. And to the Magistrates of the Royal Boroughs of Scotland and provided a county-by-county and commodity-by-commodity breakdown of values and conversions for the stone and other measures. The Scots stone ceased to be used for trade when the Act of 1824 established a system of measure across the whole of the United Kingdom. Before the early 19th century, as in England, the stone varied both with locality and with commodity, for example, the Belfast stone for measuring flax equaled 16.75 avoirdupois pounds. )The most usual value was 14 pounds. Among the oddities related to the use of the stone was the practice in County Clare of a stone of potatoes being 16 lb in the summer and 18 lb in the winter. The 1772 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica defined the stone, STONE also denotes a certain quantity or weight of some commodities, a stone of beef, in London, is the quantity of eight pounds, in Hertfordshire, twelve pounds, in Scotland sixteen pounds. The Weights and Measures Act of 1824, which applied to all of the United Kingdom, consolidated the weights and measures legislation of several centuries into a single document. It revoked the provision that bales of wool should be made up of 20 stones, each of 14 pounds, ten years later, a stone still varied from 5 pounds to 8 pounds to 14 pounds. However, the Act of 1835 permitted using a stone of 14 pounds for trade, james Britten, in 1880 for example, catalogued a number of different values of the stone in various British towns and cities, ranging from 4 lb to 26 lb
6.
Pound sterling
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It is subdivided into 100 pence. A number of nations that do not use sterling also have called the pound. At various times, the sterling was commodity money or bank notes backed by silver or gold. The pound sterling is the worlds oldest currency still in use, the British Crown dependencies of Guernsey and Jersey produce their own local issues of sterling, the Guernsey pound and the Jersey pound. The pound sterling is also used in the Isle of Man, Gibraltar, the Bank of England is the central bank for the pound sterling, issuing its own coins and banknotes, and regulating issuance of banknotes by private banks in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Sterling is the fourth most-traded currency in the exchange market, after the United States dollar, the euro. Together with those three currencies it forms the basket of currencies which calculate the value of IMF special drawing rights, Sterling is also the third most-held reserve currency in global reserves. The full, official name, pound sterling, is used mainly in formal contexts, otherwise the term pound is normally used. The abbreviations ster. or stg. are sometimes used, the term British pound is commonly used in less formal contexts, although it is not an official name of the currency. The pound sterling is also referred to as cable amongst forex traders, the origins of this term are attributed to the fact that in the 1800s, the dollar/pound sterling exchange rate was transmitted via transatlantic cable. Forex brokers are sometimes referred to as cable dealers, as another established source notes, the compound expression was then derived, silver coins known as sterlings were issued in the Saxon kingdoms,240 of them being minted from a pound of silver. Hence, large payments came to be reckoned in pounds of sterlings, in 1260, Henry III granted them a charter of protection. And because the Leagues money was not frequently debased like that of England, English traders stipulated to be paid in pounds of the Easterlings, and land for their Kontor, the Steelyard of London, which by the 1340s was also called Easterlings Hall, or Esterlingeshalle. For further discussion of the etymology of sterling, see sterling silver, the currency sign for the pound sign is £, which is usually written with a single cross-bar, though a version with a double cross-bar is also sometimes seen. The ISO4217 currency code is GBP, occasionally, the abbreviation UKP is used but this is non-standard because the ISO3166 country code for the United Kingdom is GB. The Crown dependencies use their own codes, GGP, JEP, stocks are often traded in pence, so traders may refer to pence sterling, GBX, when listing stock prices. A common slang term for the pound sterling or pound is quid, since decimalisation in 1971, the pound has been divided into 100 pence. The symbol for the penny is p, hence an amount such as 50p properly pronounced fifty pence is more colloquially, quite often, pronounced fifty pee /fɪfti, pi and this also helped to distinguish between new and old pence amounts during the changeover to the decimal system
7.
Investec
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Investec is an international specialist banking and asset management group. It provides a range of products and services to a client base in three principal markets, the United Kingdom, South Africa and Australia. Investec is dual listed on the London Stock Exchange and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, Investec is a FTSE250 company. Investecs South African headquarters are at 100 Grayston Drive, Sandown, investecs UK headquarters are at 2 Gresham Street in Central London. Investecs Irish headquarters are at The Harcourt Building, Harcourt Street, Investec was founded as a small leasing and financing company in 1974 in Johannesburg by Larry Nestadt, Errol Grolman and Ian Kantor. It has expanded through a combination of growth and strategic acquisitions. It secured a licence in 1980 and was first listed on the JSE Securities Exchange in South Africa in 1986, after merging with Metboard. In 1988, Investec Bank Limited was restructured into Investec Group Limited, giving Investec Management, in 1990, Investec acquired property management company I. Kuper & Company Limited, Corporate Merchant Bank Limited and trade finance company Reichmans Limited, Investec entered the UK market in 1992, by acquiring London-based Allied Trust Bank Limited, this was the first international acquisition by the Group. In 1998, Investec acquired Guinness Mahon, a leading London based merchant bank and it also bought Hambros plc, another London based merchant bank the same year. It was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2002, in 2003 in a Black Economic Empowerment transaction empowerment partners acquired a 21. 5% stake in the South Africa-listed Investec. In 2005, Investec sold its UK Private Client Stockbroking operation, Investec retains a 47. 7% interest in the combined entity, Rensburg Sheppards plc. In 2007, Investec plc acquired Kensington Group plc and Experien Ltd, Investec plc acquired the remaining shares in Rensburg Sheppards plc in 2010. This business has since rebranded as Investec Wealth & Investments. In June 2012, Investec plc completed the €32 million acquisition of Irish brokerage firm, as a result, Investec now employs more than 240 specialists in Ireland. Investec employs approximately 8,200 people worldwide and operates primarily in South Africa and it also has banking operations in Switzerland, Mauritius, Guernsey, Hong Kong, Jersey, Namibia, Botswana, Canada, Taiwan and the United States. Investec is organised as a network comprising six divisions, Asset Management, Wealth & Investment, Property, Private Banking, Investment Banking. The head office provides certain group-wide integrating functions and is responsible for central funding
8.
Pound (mass)
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The pound or pound-mass is a unit of mass used in the imperial, United States customary and other systems of measurement. The international standard symbol for the pound is lb. The unit is descended from the Roman libra, the English word pound is cognate with, among others, German Pfund, Dutch pond, and Swedish pund. All ultimately derive from a borrowing into Proto-Germanic of the Latin expression lībra pondō, usage of the unqualified term pound reflects the historical conflation of mass and weight. This accounts for the modern distinguishing terms pound-mass and pound-force, the United States and countries of the Commonwealth of Nations agreed upon common definitions for the pound and the yard. Since 1 July 1959, the avoirdupois pound has been defined as exactly 0.45359237 kg. In the United Kingdom, the use of the pound was implemented in the Weights and Measures Act 1963.9144 metre exactly. An avoirdupois pound is equal to 16 avoirdupois ounces and to exactly 7,000 grains, the conversion factor between the kilogram and the international pound was therefore chosen to be divisible by 7, and an grain is thus equal to exactly 64.79891 milligrams. The US has not adopted the system despite many efforts to do so. Historically, in different parts of the world, at different points in time, and for different applications, the libra is an ancient Roman unit of mass that was equivalent to approximately 328.9 grams. It was divided into 12 unciae, or ounces, the libra is the origin of the abbreviation for pound, lb. A number of different definitions of the pound have historically used in Britain. Amongst these were the avoirdupois pound and the tower, merchants. Historically, the sterling was a tower pound of silver. In 1528, the standard was changed to the Troy pound, the avoirdupois pound, also known as the wool pound, first came into general use c. It was initially equal to 6992 troy grains, the pound avoirdupois was divided into 16 ounces. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the pound was redefined as 7,000 troy grains. Since then, the grain has often been a part of the avoirdupois system
