Dixon, S; (2020) Horse-Racing in Nineteenth-Century Russia. The Slavonic and East European Review , 98 (3) pp. 464-503. 10.5699/slaveasteurorev2.98.3.0464.

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Abstract

Whereas previous historians have traced the eighteenth-century origins of Russian horse-racing and discussed the growth of a national sport financed by mass betting from 1876, this article instead focuses on the period 1825–75, when racing was used primarily to trial breeds in a quest for the perfect combination of speed, strength and endurance. The crucial dynamic was a tension between proponents of the English thoroughbred and advocates of less temperamental native horses, allegedly better suited to military and agricultural needs. Rival equine values stimulated contrasting equestrian cultures. The turning point was the 1840s, when the English model introduced under Catherine II came under attack, and when harness-racing and peasant cart-racing, more popular than flat-racing or steeplechasing, flourished under the umbrella of the Ministry of State Domains. State support for private studs amounted to incentives rather than subsidies, and their withdrawal in the 1860s affected racing less than broader changes in the economy of the nobility. Even in the era of mass entertainment, aristocratic equestrianism persisted in the cavalry, in Russia as elsewhere in Europe.

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