Horse Racing

Horse Racing

Source

Origins. Organized horse racing in the United States dates back to 1665, when Richard Nicolls, the royal governor of New York, authorized the first track at what is now Hempstead, Long Island. The first thoroughbred or purebred sire of record to reach the country was Bulle Rock, imported from England to Virginia around 1730. Thereafter scores of both sires and mares arrived, forming the foundation of the American racing stock, which by the 1860s was based on Diomed, the winner of the first English Derby, Glencoe, winner of the Two Thousand Guineas and Ascot Gold Cup, and others. During the colonial era horse racing was the favorite pastime of the Southern elite, especially the Virginian gentry. In the late 1820s track organizers in the United States standardized weights, planned yearly schedules, arranged the

settlement of bets, and fixed rules of entry. Local clubs increasingly charged admission, less to make a profit than to control the clientele, especially when only the wealthy could afford to own, maintain, and train thoroughbred racing horses. Most jockeys, in the South at least, were African Americans.

Popularity. By the 1830s horse racing had become a sensation in the United States, and remained so with each passing decade. The English traveler William Blane remarked that it roused more interest than a presidential election. By 1836 the sale of race horses amounted to more than $500,000 nationwide, and three years later there were 130 thoroughbred meetings in the country. Many of the races reflected the sectional issues of the day, pitting horses from the North against those from the South. In 1823 the race between the Northern champion Eclipse and the South’s Sir Henry at Union Course, Long Island, attracted an estimated seventy thousand spectators, some of whom traveled five hundred miles to see the event. Eclipse won the prize, which amounted to $20,000. At least forty U.S. senators attended the 1842 match between Fashion (North) and Boston (South); grandstand seats at the event cost ten dollars apiece.

Civil War. The North-South challenges continued until the late 1850s. The Civil War, along with the Indian wars, helped promote the breeding of thoroughbreds—cavalrymen needed fast horses, and by 1861 most American horses were crossbreeds. As a result, Union officials during the Civil War steadily imported thoroughbreds from England. It was also at this time that the first major-stakes race occurred in the United States. (In a stakes or sweepstakes, the owner of each horse puts up money before the race, with the winner taking the full amount, known as a purse.) In 1864 John C. Morrissey, the former boxing champion turned businessman/professional gambler, built a racetrack at Saratoga, New York. He chose the area because of the wealthy families who visited the nearby health resort in the summers. Incorporated the next year, the Saratoga Association for the Improvement of the Breed of Horses had socially prominent men on its board, including William R. Travers, John R. Hunter, and Leonard W. Jerome.

Three Classics. After the Civil War horse racing, like many sports, began to boom as other entrepreneurs followed Morrissey’s lead. During this period the three American classic horse races began: the Belmont Stakes, Preakness Stakes, and Kentucky Derby. On 19 June 1867 the first annual Belmont Stakes was won by Ruthless, with a time of 3:05. The track was 1.625 miles long and was located at Jerome Park, New York. (In 1890 organizers moved the race to Morris Park, then in 1906 to Belmont Park.) The Maryland Jockey Club staged its inaugural meeting at Pimlico Racecourse, just outside of Baltimore, on 25 October 1870. The first stakes race, the two-mile Dinner Party Stakes, was held two days later, with the winner being a huge colt named Preakness. Afterward the duke of Hamilton purchased the horse and took it to England, where he killed the animal in a pique. Three years later the Jockey Club honored the great horse by naming a race for him and offering the Wood-lawn Vase as a trophy. The Preakness Stakes had its first running on 27 May 1873, when the bay colt Survivor won the 1.187-mile race in 2:43. In 1875 the Kentucky Derby opened at Churchill Downs in Louisville, where a small chestnut colt named Aristides won the 1.5-mile stakes race. Local promoter M. Lewis Clark had modeled the track on the Derby Stakes at Epsom Downs, the Oaks, and other English classics. The stakes race for three-year-olds was later shortened to 1.25 miles, and is still held the first Saturday in May. The Derby is probably the best known of the three American classics, which today are called the Triple Crown.

Trotters. Another form of horse racing during this period was harness racing. By the 1850s there were seventy harness tracks nationwide, with seven in the New York metropolitan area alone. Most trotters in the mid nineteenth century traced their lineage to the stallion Hambletonian, the great-grandson of the English horse Messenger, who arrived in America in 1788. Harness racing appealed to Americans because it fostered egalitarianism: unhitched from its cart, any tradesman’s horse could win at the track. Oliver Wendell Holmes in The Atlantic Monthly in 1857 observed: “Wherever the trotting horse goes, he carries in his train brisk omnibuses, lively bakers’ carts, and therefore hot rolls, the jolly butcher’s wagon, the cheerful gig, the wholesome afternoon drive with wife and child—all the forms of moral excellence.” Nevertheless most good trotters were owned exclusively by prosperous businessmen, and the cost of the fine horses increased steadily from the 1850s to the 1870s. In 1869 Alden Goldsmith sold his eight-year-old mare Goldsmith Maid for $15,000; two years later, the

new owner sold her for $32,000. By 1881 the mare had won a total purse of $364,200. The leading trotter owners were steamship magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt and newspaper owner Robert Bonner, whose rivalry was legendary. Although a devout Presbyterian who frowned upon racing, Bonner could not contain his competitiveness as he encountered Vanderbilt on the avenues of New York City. On 13 May 1862 they met at Fashion Course on Long Island. Bonner won the $10,000 bet, then quickly announced that he would make a “gift” of the money to anyone who could beat his time.

Source

Elliot J. Gorn and Warren Goldstein, A Brief History of American Sports (New York: Hill & Wang, 1993);

Ivor Herbert, ed., Horse Racing: The Complete Guide to the World of the Turf (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1981).