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Horse Racing and British Society in the Long Eighteenth Century
Horse racing was the first and longest-lasting of Britain's national sports.
Horse racing was the first and longest-lasting of Britain's national sports. This book explores the cultural world of racing and its relationship with British society in the long eighteenth century. It examines how and why race meetings changed from a marginal and informal interest for some of the elite to become the most significant leisure event of the summer season. Going beyond sports history, the book firmly places racing in its cultural, social, political and economic context. Racing's development was linked to the growth of commercialized leisure in the eighteenth century, a product of rising wealth amongst the middling group; changes in transport; the expansion of the newspaper press; and the new democratic and individualistic spirit of the age, especially the more flexible social codes of the late Georgian and Regency eras.
In this book, horse racing emerges as the first 'proto-modern'sport, with links with the widespread popularity of gaming and betting which forced ever-increasing codification, regulation and event organization. Racing also gave expression to highly nuanced concepts of local, regional, national, class, gender (primarily male) and political identities. Drawing on the fields of social, cultural and sports history and utilizing many hitherto ignored or under-exploited sources, the book revises current histories of eighteenth-century leisure and sport, showing how horse racing links to debates about commercialization, consumer behaviour, the 'urban renaissance' and human-horse relationships. It also sheds new light not only on racehorse ownership,but also on the hitherto hidden world of racing's key jockeys, trainers, bloodstock breeders, stud grooms and stable hands.
MIKE HUGGINS is Emeritus Professor of Cultural History at the University of Cumbria.
Horse racing was the first and longest-lasting of Britain's national sports. This book explores the cultural world of racing and its relationship with British society in the long eighteenth century. It examines how and why race meetings changed from a marginal and informal interest for some of the elite to become the most significant leisure event of the summer season. Going beyond sports history, the book firmly places racing in its cultural, social, political and economic context. Racing's development was linked to the growth of commercialized leisure in the eighteenth century, a product of rising wealth amongst the middling group; changes in transport; the expansion of the newspaper press; and the new democratic and individualistic spirit of the age, especially the more flexible social codes of the late Georgian and Regency eras.
In this book, horse racing emerges as the first 'proto-modern'sport, with links with the widespread popularity of gaming and betting which forced ever-increasing codification, regulation and event organization. Racing also gave expression to highly nuanced concepts of local, regional, national, class, gender (primarily male) and political identities. Drawing on the fields of social, cultural and sports history and utilizing many hitherto ignored or under-exploited sources, the book revises current histories of eighteenth-century leisure and sport, showing how horse racing links to debates about commercialization, consumer behaviour, the 'urban renaissance' and human-horse relationships. It also sheds new light not only on racehorse ownership,but also on the hitherto hidden world of racing's key jockeys, trainers, bloodstock breeders, stud grooms and stable hands.
MIKE HUGGINS is Emeritus Professor of Cultural History at the University of Cumbria.
326 pages, Hardcover
Published June 15, 2018
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June 1, 2019
Horse racing is one of those complex, multi-layered pastimes – a sport, a major industry, a justification for another industry (breeding): it is simple, very old and woven through with arcane cultural practices. It also a practice that historians tend to see as one of the earliest institutionalised sports (I am only one of very many who have made that case, although I’ve never been quite so naïve to see it as emerging fully formed in mid-18th century as some have). This excellent book by Mike Huggins, extending his previous work on histories of British horse-racing back by more than a century, challenges that sense of institutionalisation and calls on us to profoundly rethink many of our ideas about early modern sport, leisure and their social and cultural order.
Working loosely with Allen Guttmann’s classic analysis of sport that argues for modern sport as having seven key characteristics Huggins points to the transformation of horseracing from around the time of the ‘glorious revolution’ (1688) to the end of the Napoleonic Wars – the long 18th century – as a sport in transition, as shifting from a fairly disorganised early modern practice to a fairly well regulated and organised modern sport. Along the way he debunks some deep seated views, and in deploying detailed and rigorous primary source data (he’s looked at newspapers, racing records, wills, assembly minute books and records, family archives, stable records and much more) paints a rich picture of an industry and a sport in growth and transition. These records have allowed him to get well beyond the top down view of the sport as only the sport of kings to debunk the notion that middling sorts were not involved as owners and racers, or that trainers, grooms and jockeys were unknown during the era.
The book is structured around three broad themes. Racing is placed in its social, economic and political context with detailed discussions of the cultures and organisation of betting, of race week as a social phenomenon (I live about 4km from one of Britain’s major race courses: race week is still a major social event) and an exploration of the place of racing in British politics – which was not as a controlled or regulated event but building on the social phenomenon it was a place of networking functioning as a blend of hustings and focus group. From here Huggins moves on to consider the organisation of racing, focusing on the presence, development and maintenance of rules with all their difference and diversity across the country: this chapter more than any debunks the notion of the dominance of the Jockey Club, although by the end of the era that dominance is on its way. Included in this theme is a discussion of the organisation and conduct of the race meeting. He then concludes with a rich and, given my interests in racing as a place of work, exciting discussion of ownership, breeding and work in the sport. The discussion and analysis is based on elegantly presented evidence based, as noted, in extensive archival work including some quite complex unpicking of both economic and genetic evidence to suggest that the industry is much more complex than we have previously thought, but also to point to ways that bloodstock was used as a political rallying point arguing the might of Britain in an era of revolutionary loss in America and France.
Much as I find the data engaging and convincing I’d like to see how some of the more quantitative analyses were done (I accept that this book, a scholarly text is aimed at a general audience and presented as social and cultural history) and to have a better grasp of the some of the underpinning material. More importantly, although labelled a text of British society, this is largely a history of English racing (there is some attention to Scotland, Wales and Ireland, but the majority of the evidence is English). In other work on racing, Huggins has been careful to restrict his claims to England so I can’t help but wonder if this was primarily a publisher’s decision. These are, however, relatively minor criticisms – although I can’t help thinking there is a lot more to do to unpick the Irish, Welsh and Scottish cases.
This is a significant contribution to our understanding of racing as a sport and as an industry, extending rigorous scholarly work back over 100 years and pointing to a sport very much in transition to modernity. It should force us to rethink many of our assumptions about 19th century racing, based as they have been on presumptions about the previous era. In grappling with social and cultural questions, and in the richness and extent of the source material called on, Huggins has challenged us to do that rethinking not only in respect of racing but in terms of British sport and leisure history. It is a major contribution and highly recommended.
Working loosely with Allen Guttmann’s classic analysis of sport that argues for modern sport as having seven key characteristics Huggins points to the transformation of horseracing from around the time of the ‘glorious revolution’ (1688) to the end of the Napoleonic Wars – the long 18th century – as a sport in transition, as shifting from a fairly disorganised early modern practice to a fairly well regulated and organised modern sport. Along the way he debunks some deep seated views, and in deploying detailed and rigorous primary source data (he’s looked at newspapers, racing records, wills, assembly minute books and records, family archives, stable records and much more) paints a rich picture of an industry and a sport in growth and transition. These records have allowed him to get well beyond the top down view of the sport as only the sport of kings to debunk the notion that middling sorts were not involved as owners and racers, or that trainers, grooms and jockeys were unknown during the era.
The book is structured around three broad themes. Racing is placed in its social, economic and political context with detailed discussions of the cultures and organisation of betting, of race week as a social phenomenon (I live about 4km from one of Britain’s major race courses: race week is still a major social event) and an exploration of the place of racing in British politics – which was not as a controlled or regulated event but building on the social phenomenon it was a place of networking functioning as a blend of hustings and focus group. From here Huggins moves on to consider the organisation of racing, focusing on the presence, development and maintenance of rules with all their difference and diversity across the country: this chapter more than any debunks the notion of the dominance of the Jockey Club, although by the end of the era that dominance is on its way. Included in this theme is a discussion of the organisation and conduct of the race meeting. He then concludes with a rich and, given my interests in racing as a place of work, exciting discussion of ownership, breeding and work in the sport. The discussion and analysis is based on elegantly presented evidence based, as noted, in extensive archival work including some quite complex unpicking of both economic and genetic evidence to suggest that the industry is much more complex than we have previously thought, but also to point to ways that bloodstock was used as a political rallying point arguing the might of Britain in an era of revolutionary loss in America and France.
Much as I find the data engaging and convincing I’d like to see how some of the more quantitative analyses were done (I accept that this book, a scholarly text is aimed at a general audience and presented as social and cultural history) and to have a better grasp of the some of the underpinning material. More importantly, although labelled a text of British society, this is largely a history of English racing (there is some attention to Scotland, Wales and Ireland, but the majority of the evidence is English). In other work on racing, Huggins has been careful to restrict his claims to England so I can’t help but wonder if this was primarily a publisher’s decision. These are, however, relatively minor criticisms – although I can’t help thinking there is a lot more to do to unpick the Irish, Welsh and Scottish cases.
This is a significant contribution to our understanding of racing as a sport and as an industry, extending rigorous scholarly work back over 100 years and pointing to a sport very much in transition to modernity. It should force us to rethink many of our assumptions about 19th century racing, based as they have been on presumptions about the previous era. In grappling with social and cultural questions, and in the richness and extent of the source material called on, Huggins has challenged us to do that rethinking not only in respect of racing but in terms of British sport and leisure history. It is a major contribution and highly recommended.
Displaying 1 of 1 review