RACING IN EARLY AMERICA
One observer commented that gambling is as American as apple pie and older than the Mayflower.27 Certainly that applied to horse racing.
Just four years after Charles II ascended to the throne, the commander of the British troops occupying New Amsterdam (present-day New York City) laid out a two-mile racetrack on Long Island called Newmarket, after the famous track in England. Colonel Richard Nicolls oversaw organized racing and offered a silver cup to the winner.28
King Charles II was very attracted to horses, women and gambling, and his colonial governors in America followed his lead in favoring racing.29 The Long Island track is put forth as the birthplace of racing in this country. The residents of New York City eventually built a track in lower Manhattan to bring racing closer to home. In more wooded areas, where clearing land for a mile oval was more difficult, quarter-mile races down roads and streets became popular. The practice brought the obvious dangers, and communities started trying to ban racing in the public streets. As early as 1674, Plymouth, Massachusetts, passed an ordinance forbidding racing in the town streets. About a century later, Connecticut enacted a state law setting the penalty for racing in the streets as the forfeit of the rider’s horse and a forty-shilling fine.30
Rhode Island claims to be the birthplace of the horse-breeding industry, based on the fact that early in colonial times a large tract of land on the west side of Narragansett Bay was set aside and fenced off for a breeding operation. At one time, as many as one thousand horses were on Rhode Island farms, and their offspring were shipped to southern colonies and even the Caribbean. A one-mile track was established at Sandy Neck Beach in South Kingston.31
Another contender for the crown of birthplace, however, is Virginia, based on the fact that most of the ports through which valuable breeding stock was imported from England were Virginian.32 By the late seventeenth century, horse races were regular events in Virginia, primarily on quarter-mile sprints.33 In contrast to the multi-mile races at oval tracks, where a horse’s endurance was a major factor, quarter-mile racing put a premium on speed. Beyond the breeding of what became known as the quarter horse, with physical traits better for sprinting, there were two other developments. First, for speed to be relevant beyond just the first horse to cross the finish line but useful in comparing horses (and selecting for breeding), the distance run had to be the same. This led to standardization of race distances. The second change was that, instead of waiting until a horse was more developed and older (racing at four years old), owners started racing horses a year or even two earlier. The first formal racetrack in Virginia was established at 1752 on the Westover plantation in Gloucester. This was the site of the first thoroughbred race in America. Some claim that horse races were in Henrico County in 1674.34
By the middle of the seventeenth century, horse races were common events, usually conducted on Saturday afternoons on a straight track course marked off with stakes where the judges stood.35 These were viewed as great events, and the crowds watching seem to have been large. In addition to the gentry competing in the race, regular farmers and planters, town residents and even servants came out to the races. Of course, large crowds attract vendors, and there was frequently a “brisk trade” in cider and brandy.36
In addition to the quarter horse, another uniquely American breed was the Narragansett Pacer, so called for having been bred in that area of Rhode Island. They were bred in great numbers in the 1700s. Paul Revere is said to have ridden a Narragansett Pacer on his famous ride. George Washington owned and raced a Pacer in 1768. Its origins are unknown but probably evolved from interbreeding between English and Dutch horses that arrived in New England in the early 1600s with the first colonists. The Pacers were great to ride, with a comfortable gait and long on endurance. Their surefootedness made them stable rides over rough colonial paths and early roads. As roads improved and more people drove in carts and wagons, the Pacer lost popularity. It is reported that the last of the breed died in 1880.37
The thoroughbred breed was developed in England in the late 1600s and early 1700s and is defined as being able to trace ancestry back to the “Royal Mares” imported under James I and Charles I or to one of three Arabian stallions also imported in this era.38 By the mid-1700s in the colonies, second- and third-generation Virginia planters had been able to accumulate large plantations and desired to emulate the lifestyle of the English gentry. As a consequence, they began to import quantities of Arabian and thoroughbred stock.39 The first Arabian blood came to Virginia as early as 1732. One student of Virginia racing history has identified the names and pedigrees of fifty thoroughbred stallions and thirty mares imported to that state by 1774. All of them were descendants of the three Arabian stallions. Thoroughbreds are not built for sprinting but for running over longer distances. Racing, particularly in the South, began to adopt the mile oval track format, run over the mile in three or four heats. A horse that finished more than an eighth of a mile behind the winner in a particular heat was eliminated from the next heat.40 This, of course, led to the need for the familiar distance marking posts along a track.
Race associations and jockey clubs were formed to establish rules for racing. The 1830 Kentucky Association in Lexington, for example, had thirty-six “Rules and Regulations” that established racing dates, officers and judges and their duties and authority to settle disputes and determine winners, eligibility to enter a horse (only an association member), jockey uniforms, the weights particular horses were to carry based on age, how wagers were to be made and the effect thereon if a horse is distanced and does not run in the next heat.41 One rule enforced early in American racing was that only “gentlemen” could enter horses to race. In York County, Virginia, in 1674, a local tailor wagered two thousand pounds of tobacco that his horse could beat another. The local court fined him one hundred pounds of tobacco on the grounds that it was “contrary to Law for a Labourer to make a race being a Sport only for Gentlemen.”42
Wagers were considered to be legal agreements and were frequently written down (along with any variation of the rules, such as giving an inferior horse a head start) or were stated before an impartial third party. The Virginia courts treated “race covenants” as binding contracts. If one party did not fulfill his side of the agreement, the other could bring suit in the county court. The first matter before the court would be to determine if the parties had properly made written or verbal record of the agreement. One case was dismissed because there was no proof that “money was stacked down nor Contract in writing made one of which in such cases is by law required.” For these reasons, there were a number of people involved in conducting a race, not just a starter and finish judges but someone to hold the stakes and others as witnesses in the event of litigation.43
The legal procedure for pursuing a claim arising out of a race was detailed and ensured due process. If a party deemed himself cheated or otherwise damaged in a wager, he gathered his witnesses and brought suit in the county court. The court comprised a group of justices of the peace. If they agreed there was good cause to sue, the matter was then put before a jury of twelve freeholders to determine whether an agreement had been violated or a race run fairly. If there was enough money involved to warrant it, an appeal could be taken to the Virginia general court, which comprised the governor and his council. Surviving records indicate that the courts took enforcement of a racing dispute on the same level of seriousness as a criminal matter or probation of a will.44
Although not strictly of the colonial period, mention should be made of the equine interests of our early politicians. Founding Fathers such as Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Jackson and Monroe were all “turf men.”45 George Washington helped to organize races in Alexandria and belonged to its jockey club as well as the Maryland Jockey Club. He kept a register of his winnings and losses as he attended races in the region.46 The biggest race in Virginia at the time was called the Subscription Plate, run at Williamsburg. Washington regularly contributed toward the purse. Jefferson was regarded as a “master horse breeder” with one of the finest stables in Virginia.47 Washington and Jefferson both worked to improve the breeds of not only thoroughbreds but also saddle, work and carriage horses. Andrew Jackson was such a fan and participant that he kept a racing stable at the White House while he was president and raced his horses under his nephew’s name—a practice described as an “open secret” in Washington and probably a technical violation of the club rules and regulations. Ulysses S. Grant was the last active horseman of our presidents. He bred trotters and enjoyed taking a sulky and driving at high speed down Pennsylvania Avenue.48
In sum, horse racing was the primary organized sport in colonial America and, similar to the sports rivalries between modern communities on the basketball court, town rivalry often centered on which could claim the best horses.49