By most accounts, the first steeplechase race was held in 1752 in County Cork, Ireland, where a horseman named O’Callaghan challenged Edmund Blake to a match race, covering approximately 4 1/2 miles from Buttevant Church to St. Mary’s Doneraile, whose tower was known as St. Leger Steeple. Church steeples were the most prominent — and tallest — landmarks, and thus the sport took its name. History did not record the winner of the O’Callaghan-Blake match, or if either of them completed the cross-country chase.
It ought to be mentioned that National Hunt racing is "posher" than flat racing in the sense that one won't see hardly any glossy magazine scum or Sheik Mohammed Al Whatshisname there, but rather the "country set". The value of the horses is neither as exorbitant as that of flat racers, nor are the stud fees, and the price money is — comparatively — moderate. The sensation lies in the sport itself.
The same applies, even more so, to steeplechasing's little sister, the point-to-point.
Steeeplechasing, too, has never attracted much followers outside the UK, Ireland and France.
The eminent horseman John Hislop wrote about the sport:
Steeplechasing has about it rather more glamour and excitement than the flat, a trace of chivalry, a spice of danger, and a refreshing vigour that the smooth urbanity of flat-racing lacks. The atmosphere is less restrained, more friendly, more intimate and more sympathetic. It gives the impression of being a sport and not primarily a business, for though it seems impossible to preserve any present-day pastime from the tarnishing influence of Mammon, the majority of those who patronize steeplechasing do so from a true love of its qualities, rather from what it yields materially.This majority includes Her Majesty the Queen and used to include Her Majesty the Queen Mother.
During the course of some research for a different topic I came across the phenomenon of the "ladies' day" at Aintree (a ladies' day is part of every major racing event in Britain) and an article in the Al Guardian, so catty, malicious and vile (and, worse, dumb) that only a woman could have written it.
...it’s [the ladies 'day] always portrayed in the media as much worse than it actually is. There’s undoubtedly a condescension there, a sense that it’s tacky women trying to ape the upper classes and missing the mark; but... this ignores its tongue-in-cheek nature.and
That Ladies’ Day continues to hold such fascination says much about our class system. People like to look down on the women of Britain, with their drinking and their miniskirts and their refusal to adhere to society’s expectations of them to be ladylike. But what they miss is that this is a national female solidarity movement. Much like your average Saturday night out, Ladies’ Day isn’t about pleasing men, but about girls having a good time, and that is in actual fact quite a powerful statement.It is indeed.
So according to that sordid little bit of bitchiness some may think that those women are aping... THAT?
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| The Princess Royal with a slightly bedraggled looking husband in a very apropos battered Barbour in tow. |
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| The Princess Royal with her daughter Mrs. Mike Tindall who is, like her mother used to be, an accomplished rider and among the world elite in her chosen field. |
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| Nothing I would ever wear, I'm more of the tweed and loden sort, but those ladies got it SO right. |
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| This would be equally fine, weren't it for the skirt, which is too short for a woman of that age, and the platforms, which are very common. But whatever. Gorgeous suit! |
This is how the average racegoer, not the upper classes, used to dress for such events. Neat, complying with the weather conditions and the time of the day and, above all, dignified. And no, they didn't try "to ape their betters", they just had their own understanding of dignity, rules and decency, as good people, irrespective of class, do have.
So the ladies day is always portrayed in the media as much worse than it actually is? Try it! Do a Google picture search for "aintree ladies day". Those photos spring up everywhere and, more, they are more often than not enthusiastically lauded by disgusting lower middleclassisms like "girls having fun", "fashionable fillies", "cheeky" or "dress to impress" (which is, in a sense, true).
What intrigued me most was, that among all that depraved exhibitionism there is not a single woman visible young enough to make the sight of her exposed flesh at least bearable. It's a gigantic cellulite and sagging or fake tits pageant with tattoos thrown in. If you HAVE to do it, you women of that ...denomination, don't do it anymore when you're past 25. Biology 101. Trust me!
This isn't working class, this is plebs.
And no, it's certainly not about "pleasing men" either. That's an outmoded concept anyway. The new "national female solidarity movement" is female-on-female tits-and arse-grabbing, French kissing and getting as pissed as newts and passing out in public. Women unbridled by rules of class, gender roles and common decency.
It was bound to happen. Thank you, feminism!
But men will still have to "please" THEM, don't they? To help them out of the hedges and to hold them over the ground to let them eliminate so that they don't pee their knickers when they're ratted out of their skulls.
For me, this holds a sort of Old Testament justice, which I enjoy enormously.
I'd enjoy even more an end to this "white knighting" by men. But fat chance! Millenia of human evolution can't be reversed in a couple of decades, but it would make me very, very happy!
