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America.” There is no evidence that while Blair was president this led to anything objectionable, for although a horseracing addict, Blair was an iron disciplinarian as well.
Racing Banned
Blair’s successor at William and Mary, however, felt that horseracing and education should be fields apart—both in a physical and a philosophical sense. In 1752, President William Dawson ordained that “no scholar belonging to any school in the College” should keep a horse at the College, in town or even in the neighborhood. He also banned betting on races and ordered that all horses “be immediately dispatched and sent off, and never brought back...under pain of severest punishment.” Two years later Dawson had to issue a similar decree—apparently horseracing was difficult to dispose of, particularly since the town’s race week continued to be popular with the social set until the approaching Revolutionary War called things to a halt in 1774.
It’s not surprising that horseracing was fashionable in the colonies. Virginia’s aristocrats often tried to import everything—gorgeous apparel, massive silver services, elegant furniture and fast horses. The ballroom in Williamsburg's Governor's Palace served as one center of society. The race track was another, for gentlemen only—equally as impressive, equally as popular. Officials scheduled race week in Williamsburg at the same time the legislature met, when the normal population of 2,000 would triple. The influx of visitors proved to be so tremendous that it seemed half the homes raitown were turned into inns, ordinances or guesthouses.
Today nothing remains to remind the throungs of visitors who come and eo that race week in old Williamsburg was a "resort of gaiety, fashion and high life."
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