Since my retirement as Secretary General I have spent some time with the racing history of Sweden. Last autumn I published a book about the (old) Swedish Jockey Club, which was set up in 1890 and now celebrates its 125 years as organisation. Until 1959 it was the real jockey club with all powers of a racing authority but since then it works as a support organisation.
But Swedish racing also has another jubilee to celebrate. The first horse races in Sweden was arranged in 1814, 200 years ago. It took place in Gothenburg (Göteborg) with the old king, Charles XIII, and the king in spe, Charles XIV John (née Bonaparte) in attendance. But there was also an English naval visit in Gothenburg and it was well known that Englishmen loved racing.
Four of the riders were in fact Englishmen but the main race was won by a young Swedish officer, Mr Engelhardt. There was a big attendance and the races were well recieved by the audience.
Then there was an interval until 1831 when the first racing organisation was set up, The Patriotic Association of Swedish horse culture. That year there were races both in Stockholm and Helsingborg (in the south of Sweden). The first heat in Stockholm was won by a horse owned by the Crown Prince Oscar, who also attended the races in Gothenburg 17 years earlier and probably was affected with a racing bug there because he kept his racing interest even as a king (Oscar I).
Since that time there have been some more intervals and a few more racing authorities but racing has in principle been going on the whole time..
The picture is also history but much later. The man in the hat is Prince Aly Khan, father of today’s Aga Khan, who inspects his horse Cobetto in the paddock before the 1957 Stockholm Cup. Cobetto was fourth. The race was won by the German horse Nisos.
swedishhorseracing 