Local historian Patrick Brown looks at the history of horse racing in East Lancashire

Horse racing is often referred to as the ‘Sport of Kings’, no doubt due to its long occasion with Royalty.

Henry VIII was said to have had an interest in the turf and Queen Elizabeth II’s passion for the sport is well documented.

What, sadly, is less well documented is East Lancashire’s own horse racing history. We know that Clitheroe hosted a race meeting in July 1617 as it features in the Diary of Nicholas Assheton, then Lord of the Manor of Downham.

Races continued at Clitheroe on and off until the 1830s – just as the folk of boom-town Blackburn were given a horse racing spectacle of their own.

Following on from the Preston and Blackburn Steeplechases of 1838, the inaugural Blackburn Steeplechases took place in early March 1839 – by all accounts on a cold and miserable day.

Unsurprisingly, the poor weather did not stop 15,000 hardened East Lancastrians turning out and scattering themselves across a course laid out for the occasion.

Scheduled for a 12 noon start, it wasn’t until 4 o’clock when the bugle was sounded for preparations to get under way on snow-covered hard ground.

Of the seven runners declared, six set off on a route which took them from Billinge End, past Shorrock Hey, through Woodfold Park, joining the old turnpike road, then up on to open fields south of Mellor Church before a home straight leading to a finish line close to the Yew Tree Inn on the Preston Road.

Newspaper reports suggest it was a two-horse race, with a real tussle between Stephenson’s ‘Railroad’ and Daniel Hornby’s ‘Antonio’ – with no doubts as to who the local crowd were vying for as they raced past the finish line.

Sadly, the roar of the locals, cheering on their man, William Henry Hornby – later mayor of the borough and the town’s MP – on board his brother’s horse weren’t enough to carry him to victory and he went down by half a neck.

A second race went off at half past six, half the distance of the three-mile-long first race with only three competitors.

Racing a tough course in near darkness might have put a few off. but Hornby was back in the saddle, this time on his own nag ‘Doubtful’ .

Unfortunately there was no glory second time round as they finished last with Mr Ashton’s ‘Miss Fanny’ taking the spoils.

After the races, those invited sat down to dinner at the Old Bull Inn; the rest simply went home with fond, but cold, memories of their day at the Blackburn Races.

Impromptu race meetings were held all over East Lancashire in the early Victorian era.

Squire Hollinshead organised races around the village of Tockholes and there was racing at Darwen on the Town’s Field close to where Duckworth Street church was built.

John Duxbury, known as Duke O’ Darren, because he was very well connected, used to organise them.