The 140th Italian Derby and Derby Day are scheduled at the Capannelle Racecourse on Sunday, May 21, 2023. For Italian horseracing it will be the most important day of the year, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the best horses face each other in the last act of a long season, an emotion that will last 137 seconds - as many as it took the German Arkadan to sprint past Tempesti in the last edition of the Derby: this year the lot of claimants to success is much larger and a great battle is expected on the track. The Italian Derby is one of the cornerstones of Rome’s spring events, along with the International Tennis Tournaments and the Piazza di Siena Horse Competition. The great champions of turf have written their names in the race's roll of honor along with those of the greatest breeders, owners, trainers and jockeys. Until the early 1980s the 'Blue Ribbon' - a race for three-year-old horses over a distance of 2,400 meters - was open only to native horses. Since then it has been opened to the participation of foreign guests, thus acquiring an international scope. The first Derby was run on April 21, 1884 and was won by Andreina. Since 1926, when the new racetrack was inaugurated, it has been run on the same course, with only a two-year interruption during World War II. At first it was called the Royal Derby. In the 1930s it was titled the King's Grand Prix and, for a short time, the Emperor King's Grand Prix. When it was revived in 1946, it was definitely called the Italian Derby.
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