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Abstract
This study explores racing's global interconnectedness through an analysis of the ways in which English racing was represented, exploited and engaged by the American horseracing and thoroughbred breeding groups from c.1730 to 1900. It examines the American importation of British bloodstock; the formation of jockey clubs and rules and regulations of racing on the English model; the emigration to America of English jockeys and grooms; visits of English racing men; and media coverage of English racing. Finally it briefly examines the ways whereby American racing began in its turn to impinge upon England as American-bred horses began to compete on the English turf from the 1850s onward.
Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge the help of the National Sporting Library, Middleburg, Virginia, whose Fellowship scheme and outstanding collections of equestrian and field sport material were an immense help in facilitating the wider research on which this essay is based. I'd also like to thank Tony Collins, Ken Cohen and Elizabeth Tobey for helpful advice. Finally I'd like to thank Wray Vamplew whom I first met teaching social science statistics when I was studying for a part-time first degree. Wray was kind enough to offer a reference for a higher degree if ever I needed one. Many years later, whilst working for OFSTED, I was considering a part-time PhD and remembered Wray's 1976 book on horseracing. So I chose racing. Thanks Wray!
Notes
1. Wray Vamplew, ‘Horses, history and heritage: The state of the going’, in Chris McConville, ed., A global racecourse: Work, culture and horse sports (Melbourne, 2008), p. vii.
2. For an example of the traditional approach see John Hervey, Racing in America, 1665–1865 (2 vols., New York, 1944). Steven A. Riess has incorporated material on racing into his studies of Chicago and more general studies, e.g. City games: The evolution of American urban society and the rise of sports (Urbana, IL, 1989). He is currently completing a study of gambling and horseracing in Chicago and New York from 1865 to 1897. Melvin Adelman's A sporting time: New York City and the rise of modern athletics (Urbana, IL, 1986) contains much material on horseracing. See also Melvin L. Adelman, ‘The first modern sport in America: Harness racing in New York City 1825–1870’, Journal of Sport History 8 (1) (1981), pp. 5–32.
3. Roger Munting, Hedges and hurdles: A social and economic history of national hunt racing (London, 1987); Fergus D'Arcy, Heroes, lords and racing men: The Turf Club, 1790–1990 (Curragh, 1991); Mike Huggins, Flat racing and British society, 1790–1914 (London, 2000); Rebecca Cassidy, The sport of kings (Cambridge, 2002); Mike Huggins, Horse racing and the British 1919–1939 (Manchester, 2004); Wray Vamplew and Joyce Kay, eds., The encyclopaedia of British horse racing (Abingdon, 2005).
4. Andrew Lemon with Harold Freedman, The history of Australian thoroughbred racing, vol. 1 (Melbourne, 1987); Andrew Lemon with Harold Freedman, The history of Australian thoroughbred racing, vol. 2 (Melbourne, 1990). Wray Vamplew and Brian Stoddard, eds., Sport in Australia: A social history (London, 1994); and Wray Vamplew et al., Oxford companion to Australian sport, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1997) both contain useful material. See also Wayne Peake, ‘The significance of unregistered proprietary pony racing in the social history of Sydney horse racing’, Sporting Traditions 20 (2) (2004), pp. 1–18.
5. Dominic Malcolm, The Sage dictionary of sports studies (London, 2008), p. 119.
6. Barry Houlihan, Sport and society: A student introduction (London, 2008), pp. 553–73.
7. See Rebecca Cassidy, Horse people: Thoroughbred breeding culture in Lexington and Newmarket (Baltimore MA, 2007), p. 194.
8. See C.M. Prior, The history of the Racing Calendar and Stud Book (London, 1936).
9. Frank Forester, The horse of America, vol. 1 (New York, 1857), p. 435.
10. Andrew Burnaby, Travels through the middle settlements of North America in 1759 and 1760 (London, 1775), p. 78.
11. Francis Barnum Culver, Blooded horses of colonial days (Baltimore, MA, 1922), p. 37.
12. See V.C. Johnson and Barbara Cruickshanks, Virginia horse racing: Triumphs of the turf (Charleston S.C., 2008).
13. Gerald Gems, Linda Borish and Gertrud Pfister, Sports in American history (Champaign IL, 2008) p. 20.
14. Timothy Breen, ‘Horses and gentlemen: The cultural significance of gambling amongst the gentry of Virginia’, in William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series (33) (1979), pp. 239–57.
15. Nancy L. Struna, ‘Gender and sporting practice in early America, 1750–1810’, Journal of Sport History 18 (1) (1991), pp. 25–6.
16. Breen, ‘Horses and gentlemen’.
17. Kenneth Cohen, ‘Well calculated for the farmer: Thoroughbreds in the Early National Chesapeake, 1790–1850’, Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 115 (4) (2007) pp. 370–411.
18. Heidi Weber, ‘Pride of ownership: 19th century South Carolina planters and their horses’, Our Story: Journal of the New Jersey Council for History Education (Fall 2006), web extra.
19. Lyman H. Weeks, The American turf: A historical account of racing in the United States (New York, 1898); T.B. Merry, The American thoroughbred (New York, 1905); James Douglas Anderson, Making the American thoroughbred (Norwood, 1916); Francis Barnum Culver, Blooded horses of colonial days (Baltimore, MA, 1922); Robert L. Gery, The matriarchy of the American turf (New York, 1931).
20. Fairfax Harrison, The background of the American Stud Book (Richmond, VA, 1933), p. 28; Frank Forrester (psuedonym of Henry William Herbert, 1807–1858), Horse and horsemanship of the United States (2 vols., New York, 1857).
21. Sanders D. Bruce, The American stud book, vol. 3 (New York, 1878), p. 5.
22. Hervey, Racing in America, vol. 1, p. 243
23. South Carolina General Gazette, 21 July 1775; Fairfax Harrison, The Johns Island Stud South Carolina, 1750–1788 (Richmond, VA, 1931), esp. pp. 6, 34, 54.
24. Turf, Field and Farm, 26 May 1876.
25. See Rebecca Cassidy, Horse people: Thoroughbred breeding culture in Lexington and Newmarket (Baltimore, MA, 2007), pp. 15–16.
26. Anderson, Making the American thoroughbred, p. 10.
27. Hervey, Racing in America, vol. 1, p. 139.
28. Hervey, Racing in America, vol. 1, pp. 321 ff.
29. Huggins, Flat racing and British society, p. 33.
30. Spirit of the Times, 15 Jan. 1887.
31. Sanders D. Bruce, The American stud book, vol. 4 (New York, 1884).
32. Vosburgh, ‘Preface’, in W.C. Whitney, H.G. Crickmore's Racing Calendars, 1861–1869 (New York, 1901).
33. Wray Vamplew, ‘Sporting innovation: The American invasion of the British turf and links 1895–1905’, Sport History Review 35 (2) (2004), pp. 122–37.
34. Chicago Horseman, 6 Aug. 1885.
35. Chicago Horseman, 25 May 1893.
36. John B. Irving, The South Carolina Jockey Club (Charleston, SC, 1857).
37. Jerrilynn Eby, They called Stafford home: The development of Stafford County, Virginia, from 1600 until 1865 (Garrisonville, VA, 1997), pp. 253–4.
38. Huggins, Flat racing and British society, pp. 174–203; Wray Vamplew, ‘Reduced horse power: The Jockey Club and the regulation of British horseracing’ Entertainment Law 2 (3) (2003), pp. 94–111.
39. Richard Mason, The gentleman's new pocket companion (Petersburg, VA, 1811) gives both English and local rules. See also Fairfield Jockey Club: Rules and regulations of the Fairfield Jockey Club (Richmond, VA, 1853).
40. Turf, Field and Farm, 18 Sept. 1868.
41. Spirit of the Times, 18 Feb. 1888.
42. Bernard Livingston, Their turf: America's horsey set and its princely dynasties (New York, 1973); Carol Case, The right blood: America's aristocrats in thoroughbred racing (New Brunswick, NJ, 2001).
43. George Waller, Saratoga: Saga of an impious era (Englewood Cliffs N.J., 1966).
44. Irving, The South Carolina Jockey Club, pp. 147, 151.
45. Vincent Orchard, Tattersalls (London, 1953), p. 274.
46. Hervey, Racing in America, vol. 1, p 195.
47. Hervey, Racing in America, vol. 2, p. 82.
48. Edward Hotaling, They're off: Racing in Saratoga (Syracuse, NY, 1995), p. 106; Edward Hotaling, The great black jockeys (Rockling, CA, 1999), p. 224.
49. Spirit of the Times, 19 May 1888.
50. Spirit of the Times, 18 Feb. 1888.
51. Livestock Record, 16 Feb. 1895.
52. Spirit of the Times, 17 April 1888.
53. New York Sportsman, 24 Dec. 1881.
54. Steven A. Riess, Sport in industrial America (Wheeling, IL, 1995), p. 31.
55. Arthur A. Raney and Jennings Bryant, Handbook of sports and media (Abingdon, 2006) p. 23.
56. Spirit of the Times, 20 Sept. 1856.
57. Spirit of the Times, 11 Feb. 1888.
58. J.S. Skinner, ‘Introduction’, in William Yuoatt, The horse (Philadelphia, PA, 1843), p. 17.
59. Vamplew and Kay, Encyclopaedia of British horseracing, p. 215.
60. T.H. Bird, Admiral Rous and the British turf (London, 1939), pp. 199–202.
61. Porter's Spirit of the Times, 19 Sept. 1857.
62. Porter's Spirit of the Times, 26 Sept. 1857; 10 Oct. 1857.
63. New York Herald, 26 Nov. 1857.
64. Porter's Spirit of the Times, 27 Feb. 1858.
65. Turf, Field and Farm, 1 Oct. 1875.
66. Turf, Field and Farm, 3 Dec. 1875.
67. New York Times, 30 May 1877.
68. Spirit of the Times, 8 Jan. 1876.
69. New York Sportsman, 22 Jan. 1881.
70. New York Times, 22 March 1880.
71. New York Sportsman, 11 Sept. 1880.
72. New York Sportsman, 28 May 1881.
73. New York Sportsman, 4 June 1881.
74. Samuel Hildreth and James R Crowell, The spell of the turf (Philadelphia, PA, 1926), p. 128.
75. W.R. Rowe, ‘The Thoroughbred’, Outing XXXVII (5 Feb., 1900).
76. Wray Vamplew, The turf (London, 1976), pp. 50–51.
77. Adelman, ‘The first modern sport in America’, p. 10.
78. New York Sportsman, 12 Feb. 1881.