From Godolphin to Godolphin: The Turf Relaid

Horse-Racing in Nineteenth-Century Russia

“…89 In England itself, criticism of horses bred purely for sport intensified over the century as commercial breeders switched from an emphasis on stamina in the early decades, when most provincial races were run in heats, to the need for speed after 1870, when the highest prizes went to sprints for two-and three-year-olds. 90 Already in 1853, Captain Louis Nolan, soon to perish in the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava, complained that 'the rules of our Turf encourage speed only', and found Russian mounts 'immeasurably superior in those qualities which constitute the true war-horse --namely, courage, constitutional vigour, strength of limb, and great power of endurance under fatigue and privation'. 91 In Russian races, where heats long remained the only way to fill a card from a small field, 92 the seduction of aesthetics seemed particularly dangerous.…”

“…175 Even that literature became rapidly outdated once Russia experienced the 'American revolution' that simultaneously transformed the English turf, and in Russia affected both thoroughbred-and harness-racing. 176 On racedays, cultural differences between the two became blurred as both thoroughbreds and trotters competed before unprecedentedly large crowds whose gambling subsidized elaborate pavilions at hippodromes linked by an expanding railway network. These features have sustained horse-racing's reputation as Russia's first national sport.…”