Wild Dayrell

Wild Dayrell
Wild Dayrell. One of the earliest photographs of a racehorse.
Sire	Ion
Grandsire	Cain
Dam	Ellen Middleton
Damsire	Bay Middleton
Sex	Stallion
Foaled	1852
Country	United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
Colour	Brown
Breeder	Francis Popham
Owner	Francis Popham
Trainer	John Rickaby
Record	4:3-0-0
Major wins
Epsom Derby (1855)

Wild Dayrell (1852–1870) was a British Thoroughbred racehorse and sire. In a career that lasted from October 1854 to September 1855 he ran four times and won three races including the Epsom Derby. He was an unusual Derby winner, as neither his owner nor his trainer had any previous experience of Thoroughbred racing. Wild Dayrell was retired to stud at the end of the his three-year-old season, and had some success as a stallion, siring several good winners.

Wild Dayrell was a big, powerful brown horse standing 16.1 hands high and described as "one of the finest specimens of a racehorse" ever seen. He was bred Francis Leyborne Popham of Littlecote House, near the village of Chilton Foliat in Wiltshire although much of the credit could be given to Popham's "hunting groom", John Rickaby, who became the colt's trainer. Rickaby, acting on Popham's behalf, bought the mare Ellen Middleton for 50 guineas and arranged her mating with the stallion Ion, the Derby runner-up of 1838 and a male-line descendant of the Byerley Turk. Popham had no previous experience of breeding Thoroughbreds and Rickaby, as his job title suggests, had been mainly employed in supervising the care of his employer's hunters. During Wild Dayrell's racing career the horse was disparagingly described as being "trained by a gardner".

Wild Dayrell was foaled in April 1852. Shortly after his birth he was moved to a warmer stable in a wheel-barrow by Popham's butler, who reportedly claimed that he was "wheeling the winner of the Derby". The colt was named after a local legend about one of Popham's ancestors, who had murdered an illegitimate baby by throwing it on a fire and whose ghost was alleged to haunt Littlecote.

Popham initially decided not to keep the colt for racing and offered him for sale as a yearling. He was bought by the trainer John Kent on behalf of Lord Henry Lennox, the son of the Duke of Richmond and entered training with Kent at Goodwood. The sale price was 100 guineas, with an extra 500 guineas to be paid if the colt won the Derby.