Flat-Racing Since 1900

Flat-Racing Since 1900 (1950) by Ernest Bland ? Andrew Dakers Limited First Edition ISBN: None Condition: Fair Horse racing, 1950. The bookmakers had pencils, the punters had newspapers, the horses had names considerably more dignified than most modern racehorses, and nobody could check the odds on a telephone while standing three deep at the bar. Ernest Bland?s Flat-Racing Since 1900 is a substantial period history of British flat racing during the first half of the twentieth century, published in 1950 by Andrew Dakers Limited and offered here in its first edition . And what a fifty years it had been. The sport had entered the twentieth century with Edwardian elegance, aristocratic owners, enormous crowds and racing already deeply embedded in British life. Then came two world wars. Economic depression. Social upheaval. Changes in transport. Changes in betting. Changes in ownership. And enough memorable horses, jockeys, trainers and great races to fill rather more than one respectable volume. Fortunately, Ernest Bland seems to have been willing to try. Flat racing has always occupied a peculiar position in British culture. It is sport. It is business. It is breeding. It is gambling. It is fashion. And, on certain race days, it is an elaborate national experiment to discover how many people can drink champagne before lunchtime while maintaining formal dress. The horses, meanwhile, are expected to remain professional. This book looks back across the first half of the twentieth century, when names associated with the turf were followed with the same intensity later generations would apply to footballers, Formula One drivers or celebrities who have become famous without anyone being entirely certain why. The great meetings mattered. Ascot. Epsom. Newmarket. Goodwood. Doncaster. Places where fortunes could be won, reputations established and perfectly respectable adults could spend several minutes shouting at an animal approximately half a mile away. The Derby naturally occupies a central place in the story. Few sporting events accumulated quite the same mixture of prestige, spectacle and national obsession. Derby Day once attracted enormous crowds from every level of society. Aristocrats arrived in style. Ordinary racegoers poured in by train and road. Bookmakers did business. Vendors sold everything imaginable. And somewhere in the middle of the chaos, a group of very expensive horses ran around Epsom Downs for a few minutes. Everything else was preparation. Racing before television depended heavily on newspapers, radio, racecourses and the remarkable human ability to become passionately invested in an event one had not actually seen. Results travelled by telegraph and telephone. Racing correspondents mattered. Form books mattered. Tips mattered. And the man in the pub who claimed to know somebody at the stable had already developed into a highly resilient institution. Technology changes. Reliable inside information remains permanently just around the corner. The book also comes from an age when the racing world was still strongly associated with class. Owners could include aristocrats, industrialists and wealthy businessmen. Royal involvement added glamour. Trainers operated famous yards. Jockeys became national figures. And racing journalism frequently possessed a wonderfully ceremonial tone, as though describing a horse winning by two lengths required approximately the same gravity as announcing a constitutional development. There was money involved, naturally. There has always been money involved. Nobody breeds thoroughbreds entirely for the exercise. The bloodstock side of racing is itself a magnificent combination of science, tradition and optimism. Study pedigrees. Analyse form. Choose stallions. Breed carefully. Wait several years. Then discover the horse has absolutely no interest in running faster than the others. Nature retains veto power. But when it works, the results can be spectacular. Great racehorses become names.