The Oaks is a famous horse race in Britain, run every year at Epsom. It is for fillies: young female horses, usually three years old. It is a flat race, which means the horses run on level ground and do not jump fences. People in racing treat it as one of the biggest days of the year, in the same family of classic races as the Derby — though actually the Oaks is the one for the young females, and the Derby is the one people name more often. You will nearly always hear it with the: the Oaks. Other countries later copied the name (there is a Kentucky Oaks in the United States, and similar races elsewhere), but in a British learner’s book this word points at the Epsom race. The name comes from that race, and the race took its name from an old house and land near Epsom called the Oaks.