The Encyclopedia of British Horse Racing offers an innovative approach to one of Britain's oldest sports. While it considers the traditional themes of gambling and breeding, and contains biographies of human personalities and equine stars, it also devotes significant space to neglected areas. Entries include: social, economic and political forces that have influenced racing controversial historical and current issues legal and illegal gambling, and racing finance the British impact on world horseracing history and heritage of horseracing links between horse racing and the arts, media and technology human and equine biographies venues associated with racing horseracing websites The Encyclopedia of British Horse Racing provides a unique source of information and will be of great interest to sports historians as well as all those whose work or leisure brings them into the world of racing.

This innovative approach to the history of British horse racing is a unique source of information. As well a comprehensive guide to traditional themes, the Encyclopedia provides reference on a broad range of less well-studied issues.

This book constitutes the first full volume dedicated to an academic analysis of horseracing in British cinema. Through comprehensive contextual histories of film production and reception, together with detailed textual analysis, this book explores the aesthetic and emotive power of the enduringly popular horseracing genre, its ideologically-inflected landscape and the ways in which horse owners and riders, bookmakers and punters have been represented on British screen. The films discussed span from the 1890s to the present day and include silent shorts, quota quickies and big-budget biopics. A work of social and film history, The British Horseracing Film demonstrates how the so-called “sport of kings” functions as an accessible institutional structure through which to explore cinematic discussions about the British nation—but also, and equally, national approaches to British cinema.

An authoritative and comprehensive illustrated work of reference, which tells the story of the "sport of kings" from its earliest inception to the present day.

This text will provoke a discussion about the future of horseracing and is written in an accessible and scholarly style.

Published to mark the career of one of sports history’s pioneers, this book traces the evolution of sport across three continents. It brings together some of sports history’s leading scholars to investigate not only the history of sport but also how that history is written. This Festschrift marks the retirement of Professor Wray Vamplew – an internationally-renowned leader in the field of sports history. His 1976 book The Turf was one of the very first academic histories of sport and he has been a prolific writer, scholar and teacher for almost forty years. No one has played such an important role in the field of sports history across North America, Europe and Australia. President of the Australian, Australian Society of Sports History (ASSH), the British Society of Sports History (BSSH), the European Committee for the History of Sport (CESH) and the International Society for the History of Physical Education and Sport (ISHPES), Vamplew is currently editor of the North American Society for Sports History’s (NASSH) journal, the Journal of Sport History. This collection reflects his interests and his appeal across the three continents, the essays deal with sport in America, Australia, Britain and Ireland and focus on the themes of national and regional identity, gender, trade unionism in sport and historiographical debates. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the history of sport and how it is studied today. This book was published as a special issue of Sport in History.

This volume argues for a more quantitative, economic and theoretical approach to sports history. The author notes that sport can have peculiar economics as in no other industry do rival businesses have to cooperate to produce a sellable output. He also demonstrates, via a case study of early gate-money football in Scotland, that sports producers were not always seeking profits, and often put winning games and trophies ahead of making money. Another analysis examines how industrialisation affected sport, how sport became an industry in its own right and how the workplace became a major provider of sports facilities. A look at third sector economics highlights how the popularity of football provided an ideal vehicle for charity fundraising. The book observes that most sports participants are amateurs but at the elite level the paid player has a key role, and this is assessed through case studies of the jockey and the golf professional. Finally, the author discusses and evaluates various theories relating to the historical development of the sports club. This book was originally published as a special issue of Sport in Society: Cultures, Commerce, Media, Politics.