Derby
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172 free Derby trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
50 free Derby trivia questions with answers. Are you a Derby enthusiast? Put your knowledge to the test with our comprehensive Derby trivia quiz. From the legendary Kentucky Derby to international racing traditions, discover how much you really know about this iconic sporting event.
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Q 01Legend says the Derby was named by a coin toss between Lord Derby and which racing figure?
Sir Charles Bunbury
Sir Charles Bunbury was Steward of the Jockey Club and may simply have deferred to his host, the 12th Earl of Derby, with no coin involved; either way, his colt won the first running.
Q 02Which horse won the inaugural running of the Epsom Derby in 1780?
Diomed
Diomed won the first Derby, then in his twenties was sold and shipped to Virginia, where he became one of the foundation sires of American racing.
Q 03What is the approximate distance of the Epsom Derby?
1 mile, 4 furlongs
1 mile, 4 furlongs has been the trip only since 1784: the first four Derbys were dashes over the last mile of the old course.
Q 04Which railway company made Derby its engineering headquarters after its 1844 formation?
Midland Railway
The Midland Railway was created in 1844 by merging three companies whose lines met at Derby, the Midland Counties among them, so the junction town became its headquarters and workshop.
Q 05Which nut goes into the original, trademarked Derby-Pie of Kentucky?
Walnuts
Walnuts and chocolate chips fill the original, whose makers guard the name so fiercely that the pecan-and-bourbon versions baked across Kentucky have to be sold as something else.
Q 06What distinguishes a Derby shoe from an Oxford?
Open lacing
Open lacing means the eyelet tabs are stitched on top of the vamp and can spread apart; the Oxford tucks them underneath, which is why it counts as the dressier shoe.
Q 07Which salad is said to have been born at the Brown Derby, the Los Angeles chain whose first restaurant was hat-shaped?
Cobb salad
Cobb salad is named after Brown Derby owner Bob Cobb, who in the best-known telling threw it together from leftovers late one night for theatre owner Sid Grauman.
Q 08In sports, what does the term 'derby' typically refer to?
A match between two nearby rival teams
A match between two nearby rival teams borrows the name of the Epsom Derby: 'derby' came to mean any big sporting contest, and by the 1880s newspapers were writing of 'the local Derby'.
Q 09Which US president was in the White House when the first Kentucky Derby was run in 1875?
Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant was midway through his second term on 17 May 1875, and the race has been run every year since, surviving two world wars and a pandemic with nothing worse than a postponement.
Q 10Who rode Secretariat to victory in the 1973 Kentucky Derby?
Ron Turcotte
Ron Turcotte left school at 14 to work as a lumberjack in New Brunswick and got his start at a Toronto track walking hot horses; a fall in 1978 ended his riding career.
Q 11Which nonsense poet painted the animals in the Earl of Derby's private zoo in the 1830s?
Edward Lear
Edward Lear was hired as an animal artist at Knowsley Hall; a rumour later spread that he was only the Earl of Derby writing under a pen name, since 'Lear' is an anagram of 'Earl'.
Q 12On Derby Day, which hat must men wear in Epsom's most formal stand?
Top hat
Top hat and morning dress are the rule in Epsom's grandest stand on Derby Day, while a short walk away on the open Downs anyone can watch for free in whatever they like.
Q 13Which river flows through the city of Derby?
River Derwent
The River Derwent rises on the Peak District moors and joins the Trent just below Derby, and its steady flow drove the waterwheels of the early factories along its banks.
Q 21Which jockey, nicknamed 'The Long Fellow' for his height, won a record nine Epsom Derbys?
Lester Piggott
Lester Piggott won the Derby nine times between 1954 and 1983; jailed for tax fraud in 1987 and stripped of his OBE, he returned to riding in 1990 and won a big race in America within days.
Q 22What feature of the Churchill Downs grandstand, added in 1895, became the symbol of the Kentucky Derby?
Its twin spires
Its twin spires were ordered by the syndicate that bought the struggling track in 1894, and they have so outgrown the grandstand that the company's betting arm is simply called TwinSpires.
Q 23What is the traditional beverage associated with the Kentucky Derby?
Mint Julep
Q 14Epsom Downs racecourse, home of the Derby, lies in which English county?
Surrey
Surrey's Epsom was famous before the racing: a bitter spring on its common drew 17th-century crowds to take the waters, and the mineral left behind is still sold as Epsom salts.
Q 15In which month is the Epsom Derby normally run?
June
June: for decades the Derby was run on the month's first Wednesday, moving to the weekend only in 1995, and the pandemic pushed the 2020 running back to July.
Q 16The Kentucky Derby has been run over what distance since 1896?
1¼ miles
1¼ miles dates from 1896: the founder, who liked long races, had run short of money and sold the track, and its new owners trimmed the Derby to the shorter trip then in fashion.
Q 17Derby was granted city status in 1977 to mark which royal anniversary?
Her Silver Jubilee
Her Silver Jubilee, 25 years on the throne: that July the monarch came to Derby herself and handed the charter to the mayor on the steps of the Council House.
Q 18Théodore Géricault's painting of the 1821 Derby at Epsom hangs in which museum?
The Louvre
The Louvre bought it in 1866; its horses fly along with all four legs outstretched, a pose that Eadweard Muybridge's photographs later proved no galloping horse ever strikes.
Q 19Which railway pioneer engineered the North Midland line, whose 1839 roundhouse still stands in Derby?
George Stephenson
George Stephenson struck coal while tunnelling for the line and opened his own collieries beside it; the engine shed built at its Derby end survives as one of the world's oldest roundhouses.
Q 20In American English, what other name is often given to the derby shoe?
Blucher
Blucher is strictly a close cousin of the derby, named after the Prussian field marshal Blücher, who is said to have ordered boots with open side flaps to keep his troops better shod.
The Mint Julep has been pushed by the track itself since 1938, and nearly every one sold on Derby weekend comes in that year's collectible glass, which racegoers take home.
Q 24Which industry's early water-powered mills put Derby among the cradles of Britain's Industrial Revolution?
Textiles
Textiles: Lombe's silk mill, begun in Derby in 1717, was probably the world's first fully mechanised factory, half a century before Arkwright's cotton mills made the idea famous.
Q 25Which Kentucky Derby winner did NOT complete the US Triple Crown?
Spectacular Bid
Spectacular Bid won the 1979 Derby and Preakness but finished third in the Belmont after stepping on a safety pin in his stall that morning.
Q 26What was the derby hat created for when it was first made in 1849?
Protection for gamekeepers
Protection for gamekeepers was the brief: riding through woodland, their tall, fragile hats kept being knocked off by low branches, so a Norfolk estate ordered something low and close-fitting.
Q 27Which Rolls-Royce aero engine, first built in Derby, powered the wartime Spitfire and Hurricane fighters?
Merlin
Merlin was not named after the wizard: Rolls-Royce called its piston engines after birds of prey, and a merlin is a small falcon. The first few hundred were built at the firm's Derby works.
Q 28Which material is a traditional Derby hat made from?
Hard felt
Hard felt was the whole point: the first customer is said to have put the prototype on the floor and stamped on it twice before agreeing to pay his 12 shillings.
Q 29Derby County were founded in 1884 as an offshoot of a club that played which sport?
Cricket
Cricket: Derbyshire's county side set up a football team to keep players and supporters busy through the winter and bring in extra money, and the footballers shared its ground until 1895.
Q 30Ivy Leaguers' suede derbies gave rise to which nickname for prestigious law firms?
White-shoe firms
White-shoe firms took their name from the pale laced derbies with red soles that were all but a uniform at Ivy League colleges, whose graduates filled the old-line East Coast practices.