Sports

Abstract

A major presence in the history of British associations with sport in Chile, and the early development of sport in the country at large, is the Valparaíso Sporting Club founded in 1882. This was (and still is) mainly focused on horse racing, the history of which goes back to 1869, when the Valparaíso Spring Meeting was established. Initially, races were held on just one day each year—the second Friday of October—when all commerce enjoyed a day’s holiday. In the early years, races were “for gentlemen riders only.” Later, on June 1, 1882, the members of the Valparaiso Spring Meeting met to establish a club designed especially to promote horse racing, and the statutes for the Valparaiso Sporting Club were approved on September 5 that year. A key founder was John Stewart Jackson, who had settled in Chile in 1854 and set up Jackson & Company.

We travelled by special train with horse boxes attached, on the afternoon of July 25th 1889 [to Quilpué]. We were followed by a large contingent of the local populace and many huasos from the neighbouring farms, and what lent a little colour to the proceedings was that we were all dressed in good, old British style, that is to say, pink coat, white breeches, top hat, and hunting boots with tops.

—William Russell Young, 1933