Horseracing [ Games & Sports ]
… national sport, opens a window into wider sociability and cultural life. The annual race week created an important urban social space, involving both public and private sociability, attracting racehorse owners and gamblers; men and women; the … country and towns-folk; and elite, middling and proletariat groups. The race ground offered a liminal space encouraging social mixing and status display, commercial opportunities and political-linked intercourse. The race week offered a wide … giving too much water or other forms of ‘nobbling’. Opponents of racing, such as evangelical Protestants and social reformers, saw Newmarket as a site that encouraged vice, corruption and dissipation amongst the elite, while more …
Elite | Gambling | Horseracing | Sports | Women
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