A new setter greeted us this week, although part of me wondered if it might be a collaboration. An interesting device here in that five pairs of clues needed swapping with their first letters and their clue numbers leading to the location of a notable event which needed to be drawn in the grid. Moreover there was a dummy clue which would give two important men, presumably related to the event.

Clueing was relatively gentle, with acrosses 7 DISMAL, 16 BRED, 17 LEFTY and 19 NARIAL being slotted in quickly. Quite a few more went in on the first pass although I was aware that there could be some swapping involved. In fact, unless 9dn was DEBTS, either BRED or LEFTY would need moving — or 9dn SEBAT!

About half the acrosses were in before I started on the downs. Again, some went in quickly with 2 HEEHAW, 3 RULER, 4 IRMA and 5 KEEL leading the way. The FOGDOGS, SEGGARS and ROLFERs were new to me and 18dn was the dummy clue since Badge pair go in Derby again (4) did not lead to the unchecked YAWN. Soon the grid was finished and time for the endgame.

The clue swapping involved 1ac↔40ac, 12ac↔45ac, 17ac↔20dn, 21ac↔44ac and 13dn↔35dn. The initial letters of these gave D E P N S S O M W O. My first attempt at unjumbling them gave POW DOMNESS followed by PEMNS WOODS. As so often the case, it just jumped out at me — EPSOM DOWNS. I would have been mortified if I hadn’t got this since I was born and raised in Epsom.

It didn’t need a giant leap to guess we were in Derby territory, especially since, pre-pandemic, it took place early in June. Drawing the shape of the Derby course started at the end of row 3 and continued left, down and right in the grid to spell out DERBY, ONE MILE AND FOUR FURLONGS (what’s a few yards among friends). There were a few detours that could be made, especially around the ONE. I assume all would have been marked OK.

Now we had to decipher the clue numbers: 18 was the dummy clue, 40 1 the swap with the greatest difference and 20 17 the one one with the smallest. My first guess was that we were looking at the 1840 running of the Derby when Little Wonder came through to win his only race. Sadly the horse wasn’t findable in the grid, at least not by me. However, WINGS OF EAGLES was to be found sneakily hiding in the SE–NW diagonal. That was horse number 18 who won the 2017 running of the race at 40/1. Finally, unjumbling the dummy clue at 18dn (Badge pair go in Derby again) gave the jockey PADRAIG BEGGY and trainer AIDAN O’BRIEN.

An interesting trip into the world of horse racing — at least it wasn’t Cheltenham! Thanks, Lath.