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Abstract
The Racing Calendar, the 'bible' of the British turf, is one of the longest continuous series of sporting records in the world. Yet it is unlikely to receive the widespread recognition it deserves as a sporting text because it reflects a relatively minor sport in twenty-first century terms. This article will briefly outline its history, analyse its contents and attempt to evaluate its worth to historians of sport. Its reliability as a source will be scrutinised in the light of current debate, and the information it can supply with regard to gender and racing abroad will be assessed.
Notes
1. Wray Vamplew, The turf: a social and economic history of horse racing (London, 1976).
2. Wray Vamplew, 'Still crazy after all those years: Continuity in a changing labour market for professional jockeys', Contemporary British History, 14 (2) (2000), p. 140.
3. Mike Huggins, Flat racing and British society, 1750-1914 (London, 2000), p. xi.
4. Tim Fitzgeorge-Parker, The spoilsports (London, 1968), p. 18.
5. C.M. Prior, The history of the Racing Calendar and Stud Book (London, 1926), pp. 94, 108-9.
6. C.M. Prior, The history of the Racing Calendar and Stud Book (London, 1926), p. 147.
7. Vamplew, The turf, p. 33.
8. Huggins, Flat racing, p. 65. A change in the rules from 1936 removed the entitlement to colours for life. Thereafter owners had to register their colours annually.
9. Douglas Booth, The field; truth and fiction in sport history (London, 2005), p. 85. Briefly, Booth reminds historians that official documents should not be viewed as neutral sites of information but as 'managed' sources, open to manipulation and concealment, dependent on purpose, personnel and policy for their retention.
10. Prior, The history of the Racing Calendar, p. 95.
11. Norman Barrett, The Daily Telegraph chronicle of horse racing (Enfield, 1995), p. 9; Barry Campbell, Horse racing in Britain (London, 1977), p. 202; Roger Mortimer, The encyclopaedia of flat racing (London, 1971), p. 389; Wray Vamplew, 'Reduced horse power: The Jockey Club and the regulation of British horseracing', Entertainment Law, 2 (3) (2003), p. 109.
12. Prior, The history of the Racing Calendar, pp. 151-8.
13. Huggins, Flat racing, p. 174; Vamplew, 'Reduced horse power', p. 100.
14. Huggins, Flat racing, p. 175.
15. Booth, The field, pp. 84-6. The Racing Calendar is an interesting historical record: is it an 'official' publication or a 'document of mass communication' in Booth's terms? (It is classified as a 'journal' in the catalogue of the copyright National Library of Scotland).
16. John Fairfax-Blakeborough, The analysis of the turf (London, 1927), p. 162.
17. Huggins, Flat racing, p. 20; Wray Vamplew and Joyce Kay, Encyclopedia of British horseracing (Abingdon, 2005), p. 44.
18. Quoted in Prior, The history of the Racing Calendar, p. 95.
19. John Tyrrel, Running racing: The Jockey Club years since 1750 (London, 1997), p. 9.
20. Prior, The history of the Racing Calendar, p. 107.
21. Tyrrel, Running racing, p. 29.
22. For an explanation of nineteenth-century betting practices and the Jockey Club attitude to bets and bettors, see Huggins, Flat racing, pp. 185-91.
23. Tyrrel, Running racing, p. 60.
24. For example, Caroline Ramsden, Ladies in racing (London, 1973), pp. 21-2; Gillian Newsum, Women and horses (London, 1988), pp. 111-12; Huggins, Flat racing, p. 45.
25. For ladies's clubs, see Joyce Kay, 'No time for recreations till the vote is won? Suffrage activists and leisure in Edwardian Britain', Women's History Review, 16 (4) (2007), pp. 15-23; for sporting activities, see Joyce Kay, 'It wasn't just Emily Davison! Sport, suffrage and society in Edwardian Britain', International Journal of the History of Sport, 25 (10) (2008), pp. 9-13.
26. Jean-Pierre Blay, 'Industrie hippique, immigration anglaise et structures sociales Chantilly au XIX sicle', Revue Europenne des Migrations Internationales, 8 (2) (1992), pp. 123-4, 127.
27. For a detailed examination of the 'American invasion', see Wray Vamplew, 'The American invasion of the English turf: A study in sporting technological transfer' in J. Toleneer and R. Renson, eds., Old borders, new borders, no borders (Leuven, 2000).
28. British Horseracing Authority website, http://www.britishhorseracing.com/inside_horseracing/media/2.5.7.1.asp?item=001579, accessed 21 Apr. 2009.