Newbury enjoys the fine art of horseracing

The Arts Society Newbury lecture: Treasures of the Turf – the Fine and Decorative Arts of horseracing, by Christopher Garibaldi

at Arlington Arts, Snelsmore

on Tuesday, June 17

Review by ALAN CHILDS

THREE thousand years of horse racing went past at a gallop as expert Christopher Garibaldi led the The Arts Society Newbury through the art it has inspired since ancient days up to the first Newbury race card in 1905.

The Greeks made it part of the Olympics and a prize vase from 648 BCE shows the jockeys riding naked and bareback without stirrups. A stunning bronze from 323-1 is so detailed it highlights the hair around the hoof. The Romans coped the Greeks with the sport – although with clothes – and created races in Colchester, York and London.

It was towards the end of the 1500s that modern racing began, Mr Garibaldi said, one strand with sponsored prize money, and the other as private wagers. The courses were long – often eight miles – and had heats, so the horses often ran them at least twice.

Charles II – a race-winning rider himself – established Newmarket to ensure a supply of cavalry horses. Politics occasionally intruded – Cromwell banned racing because it could be a gathering place for Royalists, and paintings of meetings after the death of Charles II subtly pictured the new king as a Catholic sympathiser.

Fine art paintings of the best horses commissioned by proud owners still grace museums and stately homes, and a trade grew up in portraiture, particularly through the work of George Stubbs. The question of whether all four hooves left the ground in a gallop was correctly answered, said Mr Garibaldi, by a French anatomist, but his explanation was so convoluted that Stubbs misunderstood it to mean that front and back legs were extended. Everybody else followed his example.

Steeplechasing was late on the scene as enclosures put more obstacles into the countryside, and Mr Garibaldi showed drawings of midnight point-to-points with riders in nightshirts and top hats jumping hedges by lantern light. But at least they were wearing clothes…

Next lecture: The De Beers Diamond Cartel: Romancing the Stone on July 15 at Arlington Arts, Snelsmore.

Visit theartssocietynewbury.org.uk for more information