Insane and unseemly - John Saville

A comprehensive account of how and why horse racing was able to continue throughout the Second World War, despite repeated controversy over its doing so. Wartime racing was unlike other sports. Most suspended their normal competitions and held temporary alternatives with little significance beyond their immediate entertainment value, whereas racing remained very much ‘the real thing’. While spectator sport was generally welcomed as a diversion for tired workers, many saw racing as a wasteful luxury and there were constant attempts to stop or reduce it. Insane and Unseemly is based on extensive, original research into Home Office and Jockey Club papers and first-hand recollections of staff from three leading stables in which twelve winners of wartime Classics were trained. Events on the gallops and racecourse are described in parallel with the constant but unseen political infighting, all against the backdrop of the current war news. The book describes the false optimism of the Phoney War period, suspension and reinstatement of racing in 1940, the ever-tightening restrictions of 1941/2, the minimal programmes of the later war years, and the beginning of recovery in 1945. It includes descriptions of a day at the wartime races, Home Guard activities in the racing village of Beckhampton, the bombing of Newmarket, bitter anti-racing campaigns in Cheltenham, a glimpse into the murky world of unlicensed racing, and the Jockey Club’s equivalent of the Beveridge Report.