Standing on Warren Hill in the morning mist, watching Britain’s finest thoroughbreds thunder past, you realise what makes Newmarket so special. Racehorses are all around you — there are yards all over town. Every morning, there are hundreds of horses out training. And these aren’t any old horses. They’re some of the fastest racehorses in the world.
Horses have cantered across this windswept heath ever since James I came here to hunt, and 400 years later racing remains Newmarket’s lifeblood. The town grew up around racing and its layout reflects its sporting origins — Tattersalls, the world’s oldest bloodstock auctioneers, is just behind the high street. The surrounding fields are crisscrossed by 50 miles of gallops.
The hub of the old town is the Jockey Club Rooms, housed in a grand old Georgian building on the high street. The Jockey Club thrashed out the rules of racing here, back in the 1750s, and oversaw the sport for several centuries thereafter.
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