2001 North American Society for Sports History Book of the Year This volume studies the formative period of racing between 1790 and 1914. This was a time when, despite the opposition of a respectable minority, attendance at horse races, betting on horses, or reading about racing increasingly became central leisure activities of much of British society.
An exploration the value of racing to the working classes, the gentry and aristocracy, tracing the sport's development in an age of great scientific advances alongside the rise of the popular press.
