Features
Tuesday, 02 February 2010 07:02
Written by Ned Kelly

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Hai horses in the center of the city

Slap bang in the middle of downtown Puxi on what is now People’s Square once lay Asia’s finest racecourse. Opened in 1862. it was actually the third incarnation of the track, moving westward and increasing in size as it went. And what a size it was – a 12-acre plot paid for by residents’ contributions that curved round from Nanjing Lu to what is now Huangpi Lu, down to Yan’an Lu and back up Xizang Lu.

Such was its social importance that banks and businesses would close after eleven o’clock in the morning for 10 days during the big biannual racing meets. Here the thunder of hooves on turf would draw huge crowds of punters, bookmakers, trainers, scalpers and socialites. Ownership of a winning horse was one way for the socially ambitious to make their mark. Banker, businessman, hotelier and all-round bon-vivant moneybags Sir Victor Sassoon (“There is only one race greater than the Jews,” he once famously mused, “and that’s the Derby”) wasted no time in buying up the best China ponies. He would make sure he had the best seats at race meets and a fine filly of his own on his arm (another of his great passions).

The large inside field was used as an all-purpose recreational area where a diverse set of sports were played, from cricket to football, tennis, golf, polo and baseball, while outside a bridle path was where the well-heeled would take their ponies for morning runs. March 1934 saw the new Shanghai Race Club open in what is now the Shanghai Art Museum and Kathleen’s 5.

The grandstand was thought at the time to be the largest in the world while the clubhouse, with its marble staircases, teak-paneled rooms, oak parquet floors and coffee room – which was 100 feet by 47 feet with a huge fireplace – was as sumptuous as any.

Following the example of their British counterparts, many well-to-do Chinese took up riding, and by the end of World War I the Shanghai Race Club had opened its doors to the local population (motivated in no small way by the large share of revenue they offered). However, even then Chinese were only offered honorary, rather than formal, membership. The Race Club’s long history of discrimination, as well as its use for colonial political events and displays of military power, along with the moral implications of its function as a center for gambling, meant that for many it came to epitomize the evils of imperialism. And so it was that on August 27, 1951 the Military Control Commission of Shanghai declared the area was to be transformed into People’s Square, People’s Avenue and People’s Park.

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