Authors: Mike Huggins
ISBN-13: 9780719065286, ISBN-10: 0719065283
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Date Published: March 2004
Edition: (Non-applicable)
Mike Huggins is a part-time lecturer in history at St. Martin's College, Ambleside.
From the prize-winning author of Flat Racing and British Society 1780-1914, this is the first book to provide a detailed consideration of the history of racing in British culture and society and to explore the cultural world of racing during the inter-war years. It breaks new ground by showing how racing's pleasures were enjoyed even by the supposedly respectable middle classes, and gave some working-class groups hope and consolation during economically difficult times. Regular attendance and increased spending on betting were found across class and generation, and women too were keen participants. Enjoyed by the Royal Family and controlled by the Jockey Club and National Hunt Committee, racing's visible emphasis on rank and status helped defend hierarchy and gentlemanly amateurism, and provided support for more conservative British attitudes. The mass media provided a cumulative cultural validation of racing, helping define national and regional identity, and encouraging the affluent consumption of sporting experience and frank enjoyment of betting.
List of tables | ||
General editor's foreword | ||
Preface | ||
Price conversion index | ||
Introduction | 1 | |
1 | The racing business between the wars | 15 |
2 | Horseracing, the media and British leisure culture, 1918-39 | 41 |
3 | Off-course betting, bookmaking and the British | 69 |
4 | Declining opposition to betting on racing | 100 |
5 | Racing culture: the racecourse and racecourse life | 126 |
6 | Jockeys, trainers and the micro-world of the stable | 155 |
7 | Breeders and owners | 183 |
Conclusion | 206 | |
Select bibliography | 215 | |
Index | 225 |