| Abstrakt: |
This study explores horse races in and around the Ottoman capital city, their occasions, locations or participants before the nineteenth century. The competitions we know to have been organized during the sixteenth and seventeenth century imperial festivals were long-distance endurance races run outside the city walls. Courses corresponding to approximately two, three, four or six hours of racing were set out for specially trained horses, and prizes of cash or fine textiles were awarded to winners. In the course of the early 1700 s, cross-country horse racing evolved into more of a private partying ritual for the sultan and his immediate entourage, coming to be routinely observed at the end of the religious festivities, though the layout then excluded attendance by large crowds. The spatial organization of horse racing evolved from temporary installations to a permanent architecture. All the machinery and pageantry of horse racing, from paddocks through parade rings to the theatrics of the race day, a new stage came to be constructed at the Kağıdhane valley, at the far end of the Golden Horn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
