Days at the Races

We may not have mentioned in the blog before that our family history is seeped in horseracing. We spent many happy childhood hour at the race track with Grandpa, and cutting up old clothes to make jockey’s silks for our Barbie dolls. While our hearts still instinctively race when we hear a bugle play the Call to the Post, by choice our only connection with horse racing today (besides thoroughbred rescue and protection) is in its history, and a deep fondness for 1930s ladies’ racing fashions.

Ascot 1935

Ascot 1932

Ascot 1933

A more casual look, but lovely.

Spectator sports suit, perfect for the races or polo games. 1938.

Santa Anita Racetrack in Arcadia, California opened on Christmas Day, 1934. Famed architect Gordon B. Kaufmann designed its Art Deco grandstand with its bas relief of running horses. The track was a filming location for many ‘30s movies: the Marx Brothers' A Day at the Races, The Ex-Mrs. Bradford with William Powell and Jean Arthur, the heartbreaking Broadway Bill with Myrna Loy – almost any movie set at a race track – as well as the modern film Seabiscuit, set in the ‘30s-early 1940s. A lot of Hollywood stars of the era also liked to see and be seen there – Kay Francis, Clark Gable, and Carol Lombard, Jimmy Durante, etc. The photo above, c. 1936, is from the fabulous L.A. Public Library digital photo collection.

Seabiscuit movie. Love that hat.