2-889-415 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Doncaster Race-Course, 1850. Horse racing in Yorkshire. 'The influx [of spectators] was continuous and immense, and we venture to say that what Doncaster has lost in the grade of its supporters was on this occasion amply made up in numbers. The streets for two or three hours were almost impassable, particularly in the vicinity of the betting-rooms, to obtain an entrance into which was a task of no ordinary difficulty. There the crowd was quite in keeping with that without, but business was the very opposite of what we have had so often to record on the morning of the St. Leger-day. It would be in vain to attempt to give an idea of the concourse on the race-ground, we will simply state that it was "prodigious," and that both the stand and enclosure were so densely crowded as to materially interrupt the transaction of business'. From "Illustrated London News", 1850.