This year marks the 500th running of the Kiplingcotes Derby, the oldest continuously run horse race in England. It is a grueling four and a half mile, cross country race over the Wolds of Yorkshire that has been run annually on the third Thursday of March since 1519. The Library holds a copy of The Kiplingcotes Derby: England’s Oldest Horse Race by Alison Ellerington which can shed some light on the history of this ancient race.
It was founded by 48 hunting gentlemen who all contributed between 5 and 30 pounds. The rules drawn up by this group are dated 1519 so one assumes that the race began that year. However, the earliest recorded mention of the race that Ellerington could locate was found in testimony dated 1556 which refers to the previous year, 1555. The account books of the Earl of Burlington show entrance fees for the race in 1679, and the race appears regularly in the Racing Calendar during the 1700s.
Two entries for the Kiplingcotes Derby in the Library’s collection. The upper is from An Historical List of Horse-Matches Run, and of Plates and Prizes, Run for in Great Britain and Ireland in 1746. (Gift of Russell Arundel). The lower is from Racing Calendar: Containing an Account of the Plates, Matches, and Sweepstakes Run for in Great Britain and Ireland &c. in the year 1773 by James Weatherby (Gift of Edmund Twining III).
Among the fifteen rules governing the race are some rather specific requirements. Any horse, gelding, or mare of any age is eligible to run but all entrants to the race must appear at the Winning Post and submit their stakes money to the clerk at or before 11am. Anyone that misses this deadline is not eligible to race. The race must be completed before 2pm.
All horses must carry a rider weighing 10 stone, or 140 pounds. Riders lighter than this will have to carry weights upon their person in order to meet the requirement as opposed to carrying additional weight in a saddle cloth as is common in the present day. Ellerington notes at least one winner that ran into trouble with weights and was disqualified as a result. In 1961, Jean Cole-Walton carried 11 pounds of lead weights in her pockets in order to meet the 10 stone requirement. During the race they fell from her pockets. Although she was the first to pass the winning post, she ended up weighing 11 pounds under the minimum and was disqualified as a result.
The winner of the race is awarded prize money and the Kiplingcotes Plate. The original plate later became known as the East Yorkshire Plate and has since been lost to history. Today winners get prize money and a trophy. According to the rules the second rider to pass the winning post wins the stakes money or entry fees. Depending on how many horses are entered this could, and frequently does, result in the second place rider winning more money than the first place rider.
On the day of the race, horses and riders present themselves at the Winning Post to register, pay their fees, and get weighed. After the 11:00 cutoff time for registration, the rules of the race are read to the riders, following which the participants walk the course back to the starting point which is a stone post in the parish of Etton. The race is run from this starting stone back to the Winning Post. Alison Ellerington’s map and description of the course are worth quoting in full:
The Kiplingcotes course from The Kiplingcotes Derby: England’s Oldest Horse Race by Alison Ellerington (1990).
“The course starts 160 feet above sea level and heads in a north westerly direction. Following the road, the horses galloping along the grass verge climb steadily to 368 feet over Goodmanham Wold. Galloping towards Enthorpe Woods, over the old railway bridge, the going is slightly downhill, dropping 303 feet — a lull before the hard climb towards the finish. At Enthorpe Woods the course is now on a green lane left by the commissioners after the enclosures during the 1800s. From here horse and rider drop a little before the long steady climb up to 438 feet above sea level. This part of the course is usually thick pulling mud, which tires a horse even more should one make the mistake of riding along the middle of the track instead of trying to keep well into the side by the field. The course from here is a steady pull up to the main A163, where it levels out with a straight gallop down the grass verge to the winning post over on Londesborough Wold: a hard testing four and a half miles. Not only do the contours of the Wolds make the race tough, the weather does not usually help; a cold biting wind normally blows and it is not uncommon for snow to be present still, or, failing that, a stinging rain” (p. 15).
Since 1519 there have been at least a few years when the race was only technically run. In 1947 deep snows prevented entrants from reaching the Winning Post. A local farmer, Fred Stephenson, was read the rules by the clerk of the race and proceeded to walk his horse through the course in order to maintain tradition. Stephen Crawford did the same thing in 2001 when an outbreak of foot and mouth disease prevented the running of the race. He kept the tradition alive again last year when the condition of the course was deemed too dangerous for racing. Hopefully this week will see good weather and a successful race to mark the 500th anniversary.
If you’d like to take a look at Alison Ellerington’s book, The Kiplingcotes Derby: England’s Oldest Horse Race, you can find it in the Library’s Main Reading Room.
Erica Libhart has served as the Mars Technical Services Librarian at the National Sporting Library & Museum (NSLM) since early 2016. The focus of her position is collection services, working to increase accessibility to NSLM’s collection of books, periodicals, and archival materials. The NSLM collections span over 350 years of the history of equestrian sport, as well as fly fishing, wing shooting, and other field sports. Have a question? Contact Erica by e-mail
“Just living is not enough…. one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower”
-Hans Christian Anderson
Since the beginning of time, mankind has left permanent marks on the planet. Ancient peoples cultivated wild plants and animals, and built great civilizations. Now, people live in almost every ecosystem on the planet- whether in the tundra, in forests, or on tropical islands. While cities clearly show peoples’ effect on the landscape, the world’s open and agricultural areas demonstrate our connection to the plants, animals, and features of the world around us.
Portrait of a Horse in a Landscape, Abraham van Calraet, c. 1690, oil on panel, 26 1/2 x 30 1/2 x 2 inches, National Sporting Library & Museum
In van Calraet’s animal portrait, the viewer might first think that this horse is out in the wilderness, content in his freedom and with the whole world at his hooves. But on closer inspection it becomes clear that his neighbors are domesticated cows, and while no fences are visible there appear to be buildings in the hazy distance. Organisms living together in an environment often have symbiotic relationships, and humans are an important part of this environment, even if they are not seen. In this case humans may have a mutually beneficial relationship with their livestock. Judging by the size of the horse he is well cared for; fed, watered, and brushed. He also seems to have plenty of space to roam, alongside the cows. In return perhaps he is ridden or hitched up to a cart or carriage now and again.
The Day’s Catch, John Bucknell Russell, 1865, oil on canvas 27 x 35 1/4 x 2 3/4 inches, National Sporting Library & Museum
Apart from farmland, people can also change ecosystems by bringing new species to far away places. Brown trout, like the ones in Russell’s The Day’s Catch, are native to Europe, from northern Norway and Russia all the way to the Atlas Mountains in Northern Africa. Since the 19th century, humans have introduced brown trout species to Australia, India, and North and South America, mainly as a sport fish. Some kinds of trout live exclusively in freshwater streams and lakes, while others live most of their lives in the ocean and only travel to freshwater areas to spawn.
While not inherently dangerous, introducing new species to an area can put pressure on an ecosystem. In some places, like Australia, brown trout endanger other fish by directly competing for food and other resources. In Canada on the other hand, trout populations are threatened by yet another newcomer, an alga commonly known as ‘rock snot’. In each of these cases, anglers and local inhabitants work together to re-balance the ecosystem and remove hazards to native populations.
Frederick M.M. Warburg with Middleburg Hunt at Goose Creek Michael Lyne, 1950, oil on canvas 22 x 25 3/4 x 1 3/4 inches, National Sporting Library & Museum
Foxhunting is a sport traditionally pursued in temperate zones, the native habitat of European red foxes. As English foxhunters moved around the world, they brought the sport- and the associated animals- with them. In Lyne’s Frederick M.M. Warburg with Middleburg Hunt at Goose Creek, the Virginia Piedmont is seen in autumn, complete with fallen leaves. Viewers also see several species not indigenous to this area. Horses were brought to the colonies with Spanish and English settlers in the 16th and 17th centuries. These riders are following a pack of foxhounds, which were introduced to the Mid Atlantic area starting in 1650. the hounds’ quarry is not identifiable. Gray foxes have lived in North America for millennia, but their cousins, red foxes, are believed to have been brought from Europe during the colonial era as well.
While the subjects of these paintings have lived in their respective habitats (whether man made or natural) for hundreds of years, they are still newcomers in the long timeline of ecology. In each case, humans have forever changed the face of the environment. It is peoples’ responsibility to recognize our impact on the world around us and to treat our surroundings with respect.
An old proverb says that “good fences make good neighbors.” An equally-true corollary could be that clear boundaries do the same for foxhunting territories. In times of dispute, territories could be closely monitored to ensure no infractions across the boundaries. But more often, boundaries can be mapped to show which properties are open for hunting and which are not.
Detail of “Guide Map of Piedmont, Middleburg, and Orange County Hunt Territories.”
Navigation while hunting can be a tricky process, especially for those visitors in unfamiliar terrain. The hunt map provides a solution, often showing landmarks and properties of note for foxhunters to navigate by.
From “Hobson’s Fox-Hunting Atlas”
The Library has several large maps depicting hunt territories, and many more can be found in books. A good example is the Baily’s Hunting Directory, which had fold-out maps from its earliest editions.
Hunting map of England, from Baily’s Hunting Directory for 1898-99.
In the early 20th Century, Baily’s contained far more than hunt directory information. Also included were lists of “Hunting Centres,” an index of towns in England, Wales, and Scotland from which easy access to hunts could be had. This was convenient reference information for city dwellers planning country travels around their sporting pursuits. Detailed hunt maps facilitate easier navigation for those unfamiliar with the territory.
Hunting map of Ireland, from Baily’s Hunting Directory for 1898-99.Detail of “‘Tri’ Hunting Map,” National Sporting Library & Museum
Today’s technology has taken hunt mapping to a far more advanced level, but there’s still charm and beauty in decorative hunting maps. In a pinch, the printed map continues to work with more reliability than its digital counterparts.
John Connolly has served as the George L. Ohrstrom, Jr. Head Librarian at the National Sporting Library & Museum (NSLM) since early 2014. He is responsible for the care of the Library collections, including books, magazines, photographs, diaries, letters, and much more. The NSLM collections span over 350 years of the history of equestrian sport, as well as fly fishing, wing shooting, and other field sports. Have a question? Contact John by e-mail
A recent reference question sent me on a hunt to find out if any fillies had ever won the Kentucky Derby. It turns out that three ladies have won the fabled race at Churchill Downs. The first was a chestnut mare with a white blaze named Regret who won the 1915 contest.
Regret was bred and owned by Harry Payne Whitney, a member of America’s horse racing royalty. He was the leading American owner by earnings six times between 1905 and 1930, as well as the leading American breeder from 1926 to 1932. Her trainer was James G. Rowe, Sr., a former jockey who had an illustrious second career as a trainer of racehorses. Over his career he trained more than 30 champions.
Regret at Saratoga. From Women of the Year by Avalyn Hunter (2004). National Sporting Library & Museum, the gift of The Chronicle of the Horse.
For her debut season in 1914, Regret ran in and won a series of three races at Saratoga. The first was the Saratoga Special, the second was the Sanford Memorial, and the third was the Hopeful Stakes. In all these races she ran against colts, including the season’s best juvenile colt, Pebbles, in the final two. Following this brilliant first season she was rested until the Kentucky Derby in May 1915.
Regret with trainer James Rowe (left) and owner Harry Payne Whitney (right). From Women of the Year by Avalyn Hunter (2004). National Sporting Library & Museum, the gift of The Chronicle of the Horse.
At the time, the Kentucky Derby was not the iconic American race that it is today. Most of the prestigious races were based in New York. Matt Winn, the general manager of Churchill Downs, was working hard to raise the cachet of the track. In order to lure top competitors to the Derby, he decided to make it the richest race of the season. The winner’s purse was $11,450 and a gold cup. This outstripped the purses at eastern races, where the Preakness Stakes purse was $1,275 and the Belmont’s was $1,825 that year.
Regret led the field from the start and won the race by two lengths in 2:05 2/5. The sensation of a filly beating the boys, the incredible purse, and Whitney’s statement following the race that, “She has won the greatest race in America, and I am satisfied,” all combined to help launch the Kentucky Derby on the path to in fact becoming the greatest race in America. It would be 65 years until Regret had company.
Oddly enough it would be another chestnut filly with a white blaze that would finally join Regret as a lady of the Kentucky Derby. The horse that would become known as Genuine Risk was born on February 15th, 1977. At the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky July sale of yearlings 14-year-old Matthew Firestone spotted her and lobbied his parents, Bert and Diana Firestone, to purchase the filly. They agreed and Genuine Risk began schooling at the Firestone’s farm near Waterford, Virginia. She is described as generally gentle but opinionated, and was known to sometimes run off with exercise riders.
Genuine Risk following the Kentucky Derby. From The Blood-Horse, May 10, 1980, pg. 2508.
As a two year old, she began training with LeRoy Jolley and made her debut on September 30, 1978 at Belmont Park. She was undefeated in this first season of racing, and her winning streak continued into her second season. She was doing so well it was decided to test her against colts in the Wood Memorial Stakes, a race that is often a precursor to Kentucky Derby appearances. She ran the entire race just behind Plugged Nickle and Colonel Moran and finished in third, 1 and 3/4 lengths behind the boys. There was a bit of drama when her jockey claimed a foul but in the end the stewards did not agree and the results stood.
This loss cast doubt on whether running with the boys was too much for Genuine Risk and her appearance in the Kentucky Derby was doubted by many. However, she recovered well from Wood Memorial race and the Firestones, her trainer, and her jockey all felt she would be competitive in the Derby and she was entered. As the big day approached speculation abounded about all the contestants. The Lexinton Herald polled 44 members of the media and only five predicted Genuine Risk as the winner. Twenty-six of them predicted that she would finish out of the money altogether.
Genuine Risk winning the Kentucky Derby. From The Blood-Horse, May 10, 1980, cover.
As it happened, she held back for the first half of the race and then moved to the outside, charged to the lead, and stayed there through the finish line where she joined Regret in a very exclusive club. After 65 years there were now two Ladies that owned the Kentucky Derby. Later Harper’s Bazaar named Genuine Risk one of its seven top women achievers for 1980.
The most recent filly to win the roses was aptly named, Winning Colors. She accomplished the feat in 1988. Like the two fillies that preceded her, she had a white blaze, but she had a roan rather than a chestnut coat. She was bred by Don Sucher at Echo Valley Horse Farm in Kentucky. At the July auction in 1986, trainer D. Wayne Lukas liked the looks of her and purchased her for an owner he represented, Eugene Klein. Lukas and his son Jeff began training her among a stable of talented horses. Her first race was at Saratoga on August 13. She won by 2 1/2 lengths over Epitome, who would go on to become the champion of the two year old filly division. She continued her racing career on the west coast of the United States winning all but one of the races she entered. On April 9th 1988 in the Santa Anita Derby, she easily led a field of 3 year old colts and won by 7 1/2 lengths. From that moment on there was no doubt that she would compete in the Kentucky Derby the following month.
Winning Colors. From The Blood-Horse, May 14, 1988, Cover.
On the big day at Churchill Downs she would charge to the front of the field and stay there the entire race. In an exciting finale, she was challenged in the home stretch by Forty Niner who closed a seven length lead. But Winning Colors held on to win by a neck, and joined Regret and Genuine Risk as a Lady of the Kentucky Derby.
To learn more about these wonderful fillies and their lives after the Kentucky Derby, or to brush up on your Kentucky Derby history, just drop by the Main Reading Room and I’d be happy to show you some resources.
Erica Libhart has served as the Mars Technical Services Librarian at the National Sporting Library & Museum (NSLM) since early 2016. The focus of her position is collection services, working to increase accessibility to NSLM’s collection of books, periodicals, and archival materials. The NSLM collections span over 350 years of the history of equestrian sport, as well as fly fishing, wing shooting, and other field sports. Have a question? Contact Erica by e-mail
I feel a particular kinship to the Sidesaddle, 1690-1935 exhibition, on view at the National Sporting Library & Museum until March 24, 2019. I’m not an avid sidesaddle rider (I’m not a rider at all) but because this was my first project here at the NSLM as a full-time staff member. I started my new position as Collections Manager on Monday morning, August 27, 2019, and, along with our curator, Claudia Pfeiffer, and art handler, Alex Orfila, installation began.
The installation process of an exhibition is really very exciting; the months, and even years, of planning are finally coming into fruition! Though I have participated in installations before, this was my first large-scale fine art installation. We had two weeks to uncrate the paintings, evaluate their condition and hang them, hang labels, and adjust lighting. That’s just the bare-bones physical labor. It may not sound like a lot of work but trust me, it is.
Paintings waiting to be uncrated
Shortly before the exhibition was scheduled to open, paintings began arriving in crates from various institutions and private lenders. As Collections Manager, it is my responsibility to ensure the safety of the art under the care of the NSLM. Before a crate is even opened, I take pictures of all its angles, documenting the condition of its exterior. The paintings are protected with custom foam, plastic boards and/or sheeting, gatorboard, and other packaging materials. As each layer is removed, a photo is taken. These photos are our record in the unlikely event an item arrives damaged.
A photo taken as each layer is uncovered
After a painting has been fully removed from its crate, it is placed on a cloth-covered table for evaluation, known as a condition report. Lending institutions and some private lenders provide their own report detailing the physical condition of the object upon leaving their premises. I compare that to the object and my own report and see if there are any changes. Are there any new scratches on the frame or canvas? More photos are taken, noting any existing damage (based on the lender’s report) to the frame or the painting itself. The hardware from which the painting will be hung also needs to be evaluated – does it need to be tightened or replaced? The lender is always consulted regarding any potential changes.
Waiting patiently for yet another photo – look at all that paperwork!
Once all the paintings have been uncrated, it is finally time to start hanging them using the layout that Claudia finalized months ago. This involves a lot of math. Claudia and Alex have been working together on installations for twenty years; they have this process fine-tuned.
Once all the paintings are hung, the accompanying labels are next. These need to be properly aligned with each other and the painting. I brought out the laser level for this. Hopefully with time, I’ll be able to gauge it just by looking at it. What took me ten minutes with the laser, took Claudia ten seconds eyeballing it.
Lastly is the lighting. This sounds quick and easy but is actually the most tedious. There are different kinds of light canisters, bulbs, and screens. We want the entire painting to receive the same amount of light without causing any glare or shadow. Another element to consider is if there are restrictions on how much light a particular work of art can be exposed to. If it is a drawing or watercolor, the light levels are generally lower. An oil painting can tolerate levels that are a little stronger.
Once the installation is complete, that’s it for now, right? Not quite. Part of the agreement with the lenders, and one of the reasons why they agree to loan to us, is because we will treat the works as if they were ours. Twice a week, for the duration of the exhibition, our curatorial intern, Cynthia Kurtz, and I will gently dust the frames. This allows us to monitor any existing conditions and keep an eye out for any potential new issues.
Finally, when the exhibition closes at the end of March, as the paintings are removed from the walls, I will compare the condition reports completed in August, making any notations. Even more thorough photos will be taken. When the paintings arrive at their home museums, my counterparts will then do yet another condition report to ensure its safe transport between the NSLM and their museum. Overkill? Not at all. It is our job to maintain and preserve the works – we wouldn’t have it any other way!
Be sure to see Sidesaddle, 1690-1935 before it closes on March 24!
Lauren Kraut is the Collections Manager at the National Sporting Library & Museum. Her primary focus is to maintain and preserve the works of art in the collection and on loan. Email her at lkraut@NationalSporting.org
As a quick search of the collection reveals, the National Sporting Library holds some 956 books on “fox-hunting,” ranging in date from J. Roberts, An Essay on Hunting (1733) to Alastair Jackson, Lady of the Chase: The Life and Hunting Diaries of Daphne Moore (2018). Anyone likely to be visiting this website will know all the familiar names, from the prolific Nimrod and Robert Smith Surtees, to the less widely published William Scarth Dixon and Willoughby de Broke, Richard Greville Verney, to writers primarily known for one seminal work: Anthony Trollope, Hunting Sketches (1865), or George Whyte-Melville, Riding Recollections (1878).
An Essay on Hunting by a Country Squire (1820). Gift of John H. and Martha Daniels.
The Library’s holdings from the 20th century alone total an impressive 602 works. They also include many by familiar names, such as the “standards” J. Stanley Reeve and A. Henry Higginson or, more recently, Michael Clayton and Alexander Mackay-Smith, as well as a number of influential works by women writers, such as Lady Diana Shedden and Lady Apsley, “To Whom The Goddess . . .”—Hunting and Riding for Women (1932), Lida Fleitmann Bloodgood, Hoofs in the Distance (1953), and E.V.A. Christy, Cross-Saddle and Side-Saddle (1932), one of many books on equitation that include the demands of riding across country.
Many of the 20th century works, most of them held by NSLM, date to the interwar years. Citing 177 examples, Anne Grimshaw has estimated that books specifically on hunting published in England between 1919 and 1945 accounted for “25% of the total output of equestrian literature” (Grimshaw, 160). They include at least one title of signal literary merit: Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, published by the distinguished poet Siegfried Sassoon in 1928 as the first volume of what would become a Great War trilogy, The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston (1937).
2. Sassoon and Sherston
Siegfried Loraine Sassoon (1886-1967), poet and novelist, platinum print, wearing military uniform with the collar badges of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers and hat, Beresford’s stamp and copyright line on verso, 6 x 4½ in (15.2 x 11.5 cm). Accessed via Wikimedia Commons, January 2019.
Though primarily known as a “Great War Poet,” Sassoon joins Robert Graves and Edmund Blunden as one of the most important British memoirists to have served on the Western Front.[1] In addition to three volumes of non-fictional memoirs, Sassoon published the three volumes of fictional memoirs that constitute the Sherston trilogy: the first two volumes form a clearly linked pair written only two years apart; the much shorter and less fully realized third volume, written four years later, brings the trilogy’s story to a coherent conclusion and provides the vantage from which Sherston narrates it.[2]
In outline, the story is simple. Memoirs of aFox-Hunting Man tracks Sherston’s evolution as a young rural sportsman to his installation as a newly minted infantry officer in 1914. It concludes with his waking from an idyllic dream of hunt country to a grim view over no man’s land. Memoirs of anInfantry Officer recounts Sherston’s life at the front from 1915 to 1917, including the single-handed attack on a German trench that earns him a Military Cross, and the growing “anti-war bitterness” that issues in his public anti-war statement and the military’s retaliatory diagnosis of him as “shell-shocked.” Sherston’s Progress, finally, limns Sherston’s psychiatric therapy and plumbs the internal conflict that results in his return to action in 1918 and the wound that ended his military service.
5. Sherston’s Progress by Siegfried Sassoon (1945). Gift of Alexander Mackay-Smith.
The events in Sassoon’s own life and memoirs match those in Sherston’s closely, with the crucial difference, as Sassoon puts it, that “Sherston was a simplified version of my ‘outdoor self.’ He was denied the complex advantage of being a soldier poet” (Siegfried’s Journey, 69). As Sherston puts it, Fox-Hunting Man depends “solely on my experiences as a sportsman,” primarily as horseman, but also as cricketer and golfer. The War, ironically, will fix his one shortcoming: “I had never shot at a bird or an animal in my life, though I’d often felt that my position as a sportsman would be stronger if I were ‘a good man with a gun.’”
3. Horseman and Infantryman
Fox-Hunting Man first appeared anonymously and independently and quickly enjoyed wide acclaim.[3] The reading public in 1928, like many readers in sporting circles today, celebrated it as one of the gently ironic memoirs of fox-hunting published in great numbers in England and America between the wars. Sassoon nominally proffered it as such, but its final chapters, and the subsequent publication of Infantry Officer, make clear that he also intended to draw out parallels between hunting in England and soldiering in France.
Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man by Siegfried Sassoon (1929).
The parallelism that Sassoon (and thus Sherston) develops is manifold, complex, nuanced, and ambivalent. It involves, among other things, landscape (rural hunt country and war-torn wasteland), organization (hunt hierarchy and military command), protocols (hunt etiquette and military rules of procedure), horses (hunters and chargers), and, perhaps most important, the shared values of specialized knowledge and skill and of boldness and courage, and a shared recognition that some acts are irrevocable—Sherston’s facing a big hedge with the feeling “that I was ‘in for it’” foreshadows his feeling when “going over the top.”
At first look, Fox-Hunting Man and Infantry Officer set fox hunting and warfare in opposition. They contrast the freedom of fast and exhilarating movement on horseback over bright and broad fields dotted with woods, hedges, and fences with the confinement of cramped and terrified movement in dark and narrow trenches or on one’s belly through corpse strewn mud. At the same time, however, the books also place hunting and warfare in apposition. They call both hunting and warfare “inhumane” practices that enact ritual killing (albeit of different prey) and that entail attrition of men and horses (albeit incidental as opposed to intrinsic).
Fox-hunting comprises mounted humans following a canine pack chasing vulpine prey across a rural landscape. Sassoon links those essentials both literally and figuratively to corresponding aspects of the Great War. “Wire,” for example, shows up repeatedly in Fox-Hunting Man—in single strands hidden in hedges as “the most dangerous enemy of the hunting-man” and in tangled masses in no man’s land as fatal to wiring parties and wire-cutting patrols alike. The hunter Sherston unhorsed by hidden wire foreshadows the officer Sherston bereaved by a friend’s death on a wiring-party (fall from grace foreshadowing rise toward redemption).
4. Hunting and Warfare
If wire binds the parts of the trilogy, the parallelism of hunting and warfare provides its foundation—a parallel that Sassoon, clearly conflicted, both subverts with irony and enforces with nostalgia. Far from inventing this parallel, Sassoon is drawing on an idea prevalent in British military writing in the 17th through 19th centuries: fox-hunting as fit preparation for warfare and leadership in war.[4] While the idea retained vitality through the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902, it became moribund as a serious proposition following the mass carnage of the Great War.[5]
For obvious reasons, writers applied the parallel primarily to cavalry, promoting the physical and mental demands of hunting as ideal preparation for the cavalry officer. That advocacy reached its high water mark in E.A.H. Alderson’s Pink and Scarlet, or Hunting as a School for Soldiering (1900), a work directly relevant to the Sherston trilogy since it treats hunting as preparation for “soldiering” in all arms. “The hunting man is already a more than half-made soldier,” Alderson contends, the beneficiary of the “things that hunting cannot help teaching, and the many, many things it may be made to teach if taken in the right way” (Alderson, vii, 13).
Pink and Scarlet or Hunting as a School for Soldiering by E. A. H. Alderson (1900) and Riding Recollections by G. J. Whyte-Melville (1878). Gift of John H. and Martha Daniels.
Sassoon’s trilogy picks up the basic idea as a trope. Tracking Sherston from hunting on an idyllic English landscape to killing on a hellish Western Front, Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man strongly implies that hunting could have prepared no one for the uniquely modern horrors of the Great War. Yet Memoirs of an Infantry Officer intimates that hunting was precisely what equipped Sherston with the skill, boldness, and basic recklessness for his battlefield heroics, and Sherston’s Progress strongly implies that hunting also equipped him with the ethics, pluck, and moral courage that demanded and enabled his “progress” to antiwar activism.[6]
The Great War rendered mounted cavalry an anachronism, along with the idea of fox-hunting as preparation for cavalry (and for soldiering in general). A plethora of books published in the postwar moment, however, was reaffirming the fox-hunt as icon of a disappearing rural British culture and its traditional values. Ultimately more elegiac than ironic, Sassoon’s trilogy respected the icon and reflected and promoted the nostalgia. Sassoon, in short, revived a moribund British conflation of sports, notably field sports, and warfare; he buried that conflation under three volumes of irony; but, in the end, he resurrected it.
[1] Blunden’s Undertones of War (1928), Graves’s Goodbye to All That (1929), and Sassoon’s Complete Memoirs of George Sherston exemplify the genre. Their stature is no small matter, given the hundreds of Great War memoirs written by eminent British literary and military figures and by veterans and observers of lesser or no renown. For the latter, see Lengel, World War 1 Memories, and Donovan, In Memoriam. Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth (1933) exemplifies Great War memoirs not set at the Front.
[2] Sassoon’s non-fictional memoirs comprise The Old Century and Seven More Years (1938), The Weald of Youth (1942), and Siegfried’s Journey (1946). All six memoirs, those of Sassoon and those of Sherston, were based on extensive diaries kept by Sassoon during the war and its aftermath and posthumously published as Diaries, 1915-1918 (1983), Diaries, 1920-1922 (1981), and Diaries, 1923-1925 (1985).
[3] By 1928, Sassoon was an established and celebrated poet whose work often incorporated fox-hunting, such as the title poem of his first collection, The Old Huntsman and Other Poems (1917).
[4] To cite just two examples, Lewis Edward Nolan writes in Cavalry: History and Tactics (1853) that “the Englishman beats the world in a ride after the hounds and a run across country,” in what he calls “this manly sport—the best of all to form bold riders” (61), and Sir Evelyn Wood adds in Achievements of Cavalry (1897): “We have one incalculable advantage which no other nation possesses, in that our officers are able to hunt” (39).
[5] In the prewar Our Cavalry (1912), for example, M.F. Rimington assesses the right officer material: “We particularly want the hunting breed of man, because he goes into danger for the love of it” (159). And in Modern Cavalry (1922), Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, perhaps the most eloquent of the remaining postwar apologists for the idea, echoes Rimington: “The man who rides into danger for the love of it, the man who keenly enjoys cross-country going and polo, contains in his disposition the germs of success as a cavalry officer” (49).
[6] Sassoon writes in Siegfred’s Journey that his anti-war statement was “a moral equivalent of ‘going over the top,’” both actions “requiring moral courage” (52, 57).
WORKS CITED
Alderson, E.A.H. Pink and Scarlet, or Hunting as a School for Soldiering. London: Heinemann, 1900.
Donovan, Tom. In Memoriam: A Bibliography of the Personal Memorial Volumes of the Great War, 1914–1918. Brighton: Tom Donovan Editions, 2015.
Grimshaw, Anne. The Horse: A Bibliography of British Books 1851-1976. London: The Library Association, 1982.
Lengel, Edward. World War 1 Memories: An Annotated Bibliography of Personal Accounts Published in English since 1919. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2004.
Nolan, Louis Edward. Cavalry: History and Tactics. 1853. Yardley, PA: Westholme, 2007.
Rimington, M.F. Our Cavalry. London: Macmillan, 1912.
Sassoon, Siegfried. The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston. London: Faber & Faber, 1937.
Wheeler-Nicholson, Malcolm. Modern Cavalry. New York: Macmillan, 1922.
Wood, Sir Evelyn. Achievements of Cavalry. London: George Bell & Sons, 1897.
Charles Caramello is John H. Daniels Fellow at the National Sporting Library & Museum and Professor of English at University of Maryland. He is working on a book called Horsemen, Horse Soldiers, and Grand Illusions.
What do a stuffed horse, Seattle Slew, the Black Stallion, and
Ronald Reagan all have in common? Although the question may seem like the set
up for the punchline to a joke, the answer is that they are among the
far-ranging photographic subjects represented in the vintage and antique equine
imagery recently donated to the National Sporting Library & Museum by Judith
& Jo Tartt, Jr.
Ronald Reagan, c. 1960, gelatin silver print, 8 1/8 x 10 inches, National Sporting Library & Museum, Donated by Judith & Jo Tartt, Jr., 2018
You may recall the loan exhibition in the Museum that ended in January 2018 titled The Horse and the Camera: From the Judith & Jo Tartt, Jr. Photography Collection. A subset of almost 70 tintypes, photogravures, albumen prints, gelatin silver prints, and collotypes from the 1870s to the 1960s were loaned by Judith and Jo Tartt from their 160-image collection of black and white photography to develop a narrative about technological advancements in cameras and resulting images; the evolution of equine sports photography; and the horse as the center of sport, work, and leisure. Among the highlights were early portraits, a stop-motion sequence of a horse and rider jumping by Edweard Muybridge, two images of equestrian competition in the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Leni Riefenstahl, and an art photo of draft horses by Alfred Stieglitz.
“Might Dudley” with Unidentified Female Driver, Toronto, c. 1960, gelatin silver print, 8 x 10 inches, National Sporting Library & Museum, Donated by Judith & Jo Tartt, Jr., 2018
The collection, however, is even deeper and broader than the topics explored in the exhibition. Lighthearted circus performers; heart-wrenching war horse casualties; souvenir carnival photos (yes, even with a stuffed horse); iconic celebrities; and a multitude of newsworthy races, racehorses, jockeys, and finishes pepper the collection.
Child Actor Kelly Reno with Arabian stallion Cass Ole, both in the “Black Stallion” movie, c. 1979, gelatin silver print, 7 1/8 x 9 inches, National Sporting Library & Museum, Donated by Judith & Jo Tartt, Jr., 2018
How does a collection such as this come to exist? It is actually a sweet story. When they began courting, Jo Tartt, a photography expert and now-retired gallery owner, and Judith Tartt, a conservator and equestrian, began to build it together. They started carefully amassing photographic images that featured equines as a combined interest in the 1990s. Their criteria were composition, quality, and uniqueness; and it shows. Each image adds a level of understanding of the relationship that humans intrinsically have with horses, while at the same time providing a “different angle,” both in technical aspects of photography and in the context of the subjects captured.
John Kennedy, 1971, gelatin silver print, 10 x 8 inches, National Sporting Library & Museum, Donated by Judith & Jo Tartt, Jr., 2018
Many are original gelatin silver prints by unknown photojournalists, some with accompanying wirephoto news service captions. It is easy to get lost in the multitude of these images: a 1971 photo of John F. Kennedy, Jr., at the age of 11, riding a pony and looking absolutely miserable in his hunt attire; a human “foxhunt” in 1937; an astounding show of power in a draft horse pull on Martha’s Vineyard in the 1970s; or a 1952 photo of jockey Johnny Langden weighing out for his almost unbelievable 3,995th race.
Horse Pull, Martha’s Vineyard, c. 1970, gelatin silver print, 5 x 7 inches, National Sporting Library & Museum, Donated by Judith & Jo Tartt, Jr., 2018
The photographic images may be “weird” to some and “wonderful” to others, but in total they are a most welcome addition to the National Sporting Library & Museum’s holdings. Working on the previous exhibition and programs with Judith and Jo Tartt was an amazing and enriching experience, and knowing that we were able to develop a mutual respect that led to their ultimate decision to generously donate this precious collection is the best gift of all. We look forward to the opportunity of researching these images further and interpreting them in a multitude of ways. Don’t miss some of them in the upcoming exhibition, NSLMology: Science of Sporting Art. Here’s to the “weird and wonderful.”
Stymie, 1959, gelatin silver print heightened with marker and gouache, 6 ½ x 8 ½ inches, National Sporting Library & Museum, Donated by Judith & Jo Tartt, Jr., 2018
Claudia Pfeiffer has been the George L. Ohrstrom, Jr. Curator at the National Sporting Library & Museum since the position was underwritten by the George L. Ohrstrom, Jr. Foundation in 2012. Her primary focus is the research, design, interpretation, writing, and installation of exhibitions. E-mail Claudia at cpfeiffer@nationalsporting.org
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Drawing Covert
“Drawing Covert,” refers to the practice in foxhunting of putting hounds in a covert (pronounced like “cover”), a thicket or wooded brush area, to find the fox.
This blog is about the exhibitions, tours, research, programs, and events, at NSLM on its unique collection of books, archives, paintings, sculpture and much more.
Charles Caramello is John H. Daniels Fellow at the National Sporting Library & Museum and Professor of English at University of Maryland. He is working on a book called Horsemen, Horse Soldiers, and Grand Illusions.
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