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Horse Racing

American Eras

Horse Racing

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Old World Models. Horse racing probably began as soon as humans domesticated horses. In England modern racing, as opposed to other types of competitive horsemanship like dressage, was first organized during the reign of Henry VIII. Cities sponsored races during festivals as just one of the many available entertainments. By 1600 there were a dozen or more English towns sponsoring races. In time silver trophies for first, second, and third places became commonplace, and towns built grandstands and marked off courses for the events. Spectators watched for free and betted on the outcome. Races were as long as four miles and were run in several heats, which rewarded stamina as well as speed. The first specialized racecourse was developed by James I at Newmarket by 1622. While some members of the royal court raced, others watched them from permanent stands. Newmarket became so identified with dissipated court life that when the Puritans came to power during the civil war, they demolished the stands and plowed up the course. The Restoration in 1660 brought to power Charles II, a fine, competitive rider who established

an annual race, the Plate, which he himself later won. Under him Newmarket became the fashion center of the nation. Other courses developed later. Queen Anne founded the famous races at Ascot and also established the breeding lines known as “thoroughbred” using horses of Arabian stock. These pedigrees would become formalized, and some of this stock would find its way to America.

America’s Newmarket. Informal races between riders on horseback undoubtedly occurred everywhere that there were horses. Formal horse racing was introduced to the colonies by New York’s governor, Richard Nicolls, in 1668 when he sponsored an annual race at Hempstead Plain on Long Island. This oval course of two miles was named Newmarket after its English model. Races were run in the spring and fall, with the winners taking home an engraved silver porringer. The popularity of horse racing gave New York a second racetrack closer to the city by the 1730s when Church Farm was developed on Manhattan Island. In 1744 Peter De Lancey and the Honorable William Montague raced their horses, Ragged Kate and Monk, respectively, for a prize of £200, more than five times what a laborer might make in a year. Other tracks also opened in New York in the years before the Revolution.

Other Northern Courses. Puritan and Quaker disapproval of time-wasting entertainments such as horse racing meant that formal courses were slower in developing in New England and Pennsylvania. During the eighteenth century both Boston and Philadelphia held races. By 1720 horses ran at Cambridge and Rumney Marsh outside of Boston for money prizes. Race Street in Philadelphia led to the racecourse, and before 1726 Sassafras Street served as a straight racetrack. By 1761 races in Philadelphia were advertised in colonial newspapers, suggesting that those who wished to contain such sports had lost the battle.

The Chesapeake. Horse racing was one of the most popular sports in the South, and the Chesapeake (Maryland and Virginia) developed both the quarter race and the quarter horse. Races were run on a straight quarter-mile track rather than an oval course. The horses that ran this quarter mile were known for stamina and the ability to put on quick bursts of speed. These events operated under a variety of rules, agreed to before the race, which specified any handicap one horse might have and the

weight of the riders. Growing colonial wealth and a disposition toward competition and gambling led to better breeding and the importation of English blooded stock. The first recorded stallion was Bulle-Rock, sired by the Darley Arabian and sent to Virginia in 1730. The most famous imported horse was Janus, a grandson of the Godolphin Arabian, brought over in 1752. These imported horses were bred to local mares, producing a fast horse that could also go the distance. Their speed and stamina led to the same kind of course racing as in England and the Northern colonies.

The Lower South. Charleston was the center of horse racing in the Lower South. By 1734 racing was a semipublic sport advertised in the South Carolina Gazette. That year the prize was a saddle and bridle. The next year a jockey club organized. In their races horses ran one mile for prizes worth £100 at the York course. By 1743 there were monthly races there and a new course opened at Goose Creek. In 1754 a third racecourse opened on the Neck outside of Charleston. Prizes included not only money and trophies but also watches and, in 1744, a finely embroidered jacket.

Sources

Carl Bridenbaugh, Cities in the Wilderness: Urban Life in America 1625–1742 (New York: Capricorn Books, 1964);

Thomas S. Henricks, Disputed Pleasures: Sport and Society in PreindustrialEngland (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991);

John B. Irving, The South Carolina Jockey Club (Spartanburg, S.C.: Reprint Co., 1975);

Nancy L. Struna, People of Prowess: Sport, Leisure, and Labor in Early Anglo-America (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996).

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