BRIGHTON
The Duc d’Orleans was a title bestowed by the King of France on a younger brother or a son. Orleans is a city 74 miles southwest of Paris.
When racing in Brighton began in 1783, led by the Prince Regent, one of his chums was the Duc d’Orleans, Louis Philippe II. Brighthelmstone, as it was then, was relatively convenient for the sporting French aristocracy to get to from across the Channel or via London. The Orleans Stakes was run there from 1788 until 1793, when the French Revolution was in full swing and the Duc was guillotined during the Reign of Terror; theoretically for treason, but in practice for being a cousin of the recently-executed King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette. Seeing which way the wind was blowing – but not its ultimate destination – they had originally supported some aspects of the revolution. The Duc even changed his name to Philippe Égalité, but to no avail.
There may have been some Orleans races tucked away during the Regency or later in the course’s long history; there was one in 1959.
The Orleans Stakes was revived at a new meeting on 26 April 1971. Also on that programme were races named the Town Purse, Conflans, and the Prince of Wales (qv all). The Orleans, Conflans and Town Purse disappeared after the April 1997 meeting. The lure of sponsorship from Manny Bernstein Bookmakers meant that all the races on the equivalent card in 1998 were much less picturesquely named.
SANDOWN
The son of the Duc executed in 1793, Louis Philippe III, fled the country. Eventually he settled in England, but by strange quirks of fate too long to go into here he eventually became King of the French in 1830 when another revolution deposed the latest in the reinstated line of monarchs, Charles X. The Duc reigned as Louis Philippe I until 1848, the year of yet more revolutions all over Europe. In exile again, he was offered a place to live at Claremont (qv), near Esher.
Walking one day in Twickenham, he was met by the former innkeeper of the “Crown”, who greeted him with the reminder that he (the innkeeper) had “kept the Crown”. The old King’s response was “that is more than I did”. He died in 1850. More descendants of the deposed kings of France lived in the Twickenham and Richmond area through the rest of the 19th century.
Also named after him was the Orleans Arms on the corner of the racecourse site where Station Road meets the Portsmouth Road. It closed in the 1990s and became a Café Rouge, and that too has succumbed. Outside it is a large stone post, the White Lady Milestone, placed there in 1767. It gives the distances to various other towns on the road to Portsmouth.
Orleans races at Sandown began as early as 31 August 1876, less than 18 months after the course’s opening. It was a fixture on the racecard for about a century, but its presence as a nursery started to become intermittent in the 1980s with the advance of sponsorship. The last to date was on 29 August 2014.
Sources include:
https://suzannehinton.uk/2024/12/01/the-marquis-de-conflans-and-a-pub-in-hove/
Closedpubs.co.uk
http://www.twickenham-museum.org.uk/detail.php?aid=8&cid=9