Horses Racing

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In one of Patricia Moyes’ mysteries featuring C.I.D. Inspector Henry Tibbett, the inspector and his wife go sailing with friends off the coast of East Anglia. As they are returning home at the end of their sail, Tibbett notices that there is another boat nearby sailing a parallel course. He also becomes aware that for the remainder of their time on the water, his host and hostess are making many more adjustments to the sails and their course than had been true earlier. When they are finally back at their starting point, ahead of the other boat, Tippett congratulates his host on winning the race. “Race? What race?” replies the other man. “We never race.”


What has this to do with horses in Anne Arundel? Just that, as two boats sailing near one another on similar courses are almost always testing relative speed and skill, so too horse owners, as far back as the prehistoric nomads of central Asia who first domesticated the horse, matched their animals against one another, often with a wager on the outcome. Informal races in Maryland date back to the mid-seventeenth century when there were enough horses in the colony for owners to begin competing in match races during gatherings for fairs, church, or court days. Or, as the author of a history of racing in France (p.1) put it, “Desultory horse-racing of course exists in all countries where there are horses to be ridden and men or boys (especially the latter) to ride them; and the commencement of such horse-racing dates, no doubt, from the earliest period at which the horses of those countries submit . . . to bear riders upon their backs.”

The first races in England may have been those organized by Roman soldiers stationed in Yorkshire about 200 A.D. The first recorded race meeting, however, is believed to have taken place in 1174 at a horse fair held at Smithfield, London during the reign of Henry II. The first trophy awarded to a winner is similarly believed to be a small wooden ball decorated with flowers presented in 1512 by the organizers of a Chester fair.

One of the world’s most famous races dates to a period between these two events. The Il Palio di Siena originated in the 14th century; today 10 horses compete in a circuit of the piazza di campo but originally the race began outside the city with the finish line in the campo. Unlike the English match races, the palio began as a multi-horse competition, with the horses racing for contrada, or Sienese neighborhoods, rather for than individual owners.


Despite the Smithfield and Chester races, today Newmarket is considered the home of horse racing in England. According to the Newmarket Racecourses website, in fact, “Newmarket is the historic Home of Horseracing and the greatest horseracing centre in the world.” (And, truthfully, for those of us who are Dick Francis fans, the idea of hanging out in Newmarket for a few weeks or months to soak up the ambience sounds like nirvana.) Legend has it that James 1 discovered the village in 1605 while out hawking or riding, and subsequently spent so much time there that the House of Commons requested that he spend a bit more of it on ruling the country. It was James who had the first grandstand built on Newmarket heath. From here spectators could watch the first recorded race, a match on 18 March 1622 between horses belonging to Lord Salisbury and the Marquis of Buckingham. The latter’s horse won the prize worth £100, an enormous sum for the average Briton but much less so for the aristocratic owner of the horse. Spring and autumn race meetings began in Newmarket about the time that Charles I succeeded to the throne (1625) and the first Gold Cup race was held in 1634.


Charles II, when restored to the throne of England in 1660, resumed the royal association with Newmarket. The course’s records include “Articles ordered by his Majestie to be observed by all persons that put in horses to run for the Plate, the new Round-heate at Newmarkett, set out the 16th day of October, in the 17th yeare of our Sovereaign Lord King Charles II. Which Plate is to be rid for yearly, the seconde Thursday in October, for ever.” There were twenty articles in all, which laid out the rules for a race consisting of three heats and “the course,” specifying the time, the weights to be carried, the behaviour expected of participants, the circular shape, and the stakes involved. The first race is dated to 1666, but this would require the articles to take effect in the 7th year of the monarch’s reign. As Charles is credited with winning the Plate in both 1671 and 1675 (“rode 3 heats and a course and won the Plate” on Blew Capp), it would seem that the 1666 date (the one used by Newmarket itself) is correct. These were the first races in England to be held according to written rules.


The year 1665, when the articles were drawn up, is the key to devoting some attention to Newmarket even though it too is not in Anne Arundel County. In that same year, Charles II directed Richard Nicolls, the governor of New York, to lay out a racecourse called Newmarket . The course was constructed on what was then known as Salisbury Plains on Long Island, now Hempstead Plains, near present-day Garden City and within a few miles of Belmont Park, home of the last leg of the Triple Crown. The Newmarket (LI) cup dates to 1668, making it the oldest trophy race in the British North American colonies.

It needs to be noted that the horses racing at Newmarket and elsewhere were not yet Thoroughbreds, but the breeding stock that contributed to the development of the Thoroughbred does date from Charles II and his marriage to Catherine of Braganza. Catherine, who married Charles in 1662, was the daughter of John IV of Portugal and as part of her dowry England acquired the ports of Bombay and Tangier. The “royal mares” imported from Tangier, known as Barbs, were later bred with imported middle-eastern and North African stallions to develop the Thoroughbred horse.
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