THUNDERING hooves down Bruce Gardens, the exhortations of busy jockeys along St Valery Avenue. That might give some senior citizens palpitations as they set off for the Post Office. Not actually fantasy, for the mounts and jockeys were there before the streets and houses.
Horse racing is actually a venerable sport in the Highland Capital and Dalneigh was, for a long time, its racecourse. The Cheltenham or Ascot of its day to the folk of the burgh and wider area.
That is why the name Dalneigh comes from the Gaelic Dail an Eich, which means horse’s dale, or field of the horse, or horse meadow, depending on which translation you scan. The Merkinch area of the city also has equine etymology, stemming from Marc Innis, or horse pasture, the land originally being a grazing area beside the river.
The Capel Inch, which is located in the Kessock area, comes from Capall Innis, meaning a workhorse and the last of the great horse fairs in Inverness was held there, having moved in the 1850s from beside the Waterloo Bridge.
Dalneigh Primary School pupils wear a black horse on their red sweaters, a commendable link between old and new. There were horse races in Dalneigh before the time of Oliver Cromwell, meaning the races predated the building of the Citadel in the Longman area. These races were primarily at the instigation of the great and the good, the landed gentry, but, as ever, the less wealthy also took their enjoyment there.
When Cromwell’s Commonwealth fell and the monarchy was restored in April 1660, various pastimes which had been frowned upon during the stricter regime emerged from their hiding places. This included horse racing, which first dates back to the ancient Greeks and to the chariot races of the Romans. The new King Charles II held horse races, usually matches between two horses, with prizes for the winners and Newmarket was the venue for the inaugural events.
The first post-Cromwell races in Inverness took place in May 1662. James Miller in his book says “the race was held on the flat ground at Ballifeary and the course ran from the town port at the west end of the bridge, around the hill of Tomnahurich, and back again.”
A huge crowd, including the provost and magistrates, saw, of all people, Lord Lovat win the first race with a late surge of which Frankie Detorri might have been proud, though he is not reported to have made the extravagant leap from his mount perfected by the outgoing Italian. Lord L thus carried a silver cup back to Beaufort Castle, much to the chagrin of the poor maid whose job was to clean the silverware.
The races continued — local baillie Finlay Fraser won the next one — with betting gradually being introduced, adding spice and heartbreak in various measure. Horse racing in Britain actually stems from the 12th century, with knights returning home from the Crusades bringing with them fine Arab horses. These stallions of Arabia were bred with local horses and produced the thoroughbred, which is exclusively used in the Sport of Kings to this day. Inverness’s version continued at Dalneigh, with a gruelling circuit of Tomnahurich hill being normally a key element to test the equine stamina. Dalneigh’s flatness was the appeal. It later moved to the Longman then, in the later part of the 19th century, Dunain became the new racecourse, across the fields from the present hotel. It flourished there as a popular annual social event, with arrays of horse and buggies conveying spectators, usually with picnic hampers and perhaps a bottle of something stimulating, to cheer on the steeds.
Noted Inverness photograph collector Joseph Cook, who photographed the Dunain Races in 1897, later sniffed: “It is a pity that the annual trip to Dunain has gone by the board, even though its effect was not always conducive to keeping an even keel on some of the more speculative elements in and around Inverness.” Sounds like folk were having a good time.
It reminds me of the guy from Laurel Avenue who is confronted by his wife about a note she’d found in his trouser pocket saying “Dolores, 4pm”. The bold lad protests: “You’ve got the wrong end of the stick. Dolores is the name of a horse I got a tip for and 4pm is the time of the race.” The wife reluctantly apologises.
Two days later our hero returns home and finds the door locked, his suitcase packed and on the doorstep. “What have I done now?” he protests through the letter box. His wife shouts back: “Your horse phoned.”
Cook’s pictures show the Dunain races having fences so they were clearly steeplechase events. Much of the course included the Bught Park area and what is now Torvean golf course. These lands, of course, continue on to Dunain. The start of the First World War brought an end to horse racing at Dunain and to the sport in Inverness.
The late Roy Lobban, former Caledonian FC and Caley Thistle official, a friendly and cheerful character, used to tell me of how, as a 14-year-old, he was a jockey in races round the Bught and on to Dunain and how the wagers became quite significant indeed and all sorts of jiggery pokery went on.
Musselburgh, originally badged as Edinburgh Races, became Scotland’s first dedicated racecourse in 1816 and survives along with Ayr, Kelso, Hamilton and Perth. Perhaps our unreliable weather, more suited at times to huskies than horses, would not have been conducive to Inverness being a regular course.
Meanwhile, the meadows of Dalneigh where horses stretched their sinews in desperate competition, have long since been gobbled up by concrete.
There used to be a splendid strolling garden, complete with bandstand, in what was called Queens Park at the turn of the century but on which has been built the homes of Bruce Avenue.
Just after the Second World War, hundreds of Swedish houses, with wooden frontages, sprung up as a lower-cost solution to the burgh’s severe accommodation needs.
The Dalneigh housing estate, with its long, sweeping avenues, became one of the local authority’s major commitments, and now is home to around 10,000 people, a significant slice of the city populace. As families moved in there was a requirement for education and Dalneigh Primary School, with its unusually long flat appearance, began teaching in 1954 although the council, seldom accused of acting in haste, did not perform the official opening until three years later.
Nowadays Dalneigh’s main community recreational venue is the James Cameron Centre, named after my old pal Jimmy Cameron, who sailed in the dreaded Murmansk convoys during the war and then worked on the railways for many years before becoming a doughty councillor and colleague who I recall regularly making impassioned pleas in the Town House for more money or maintenance for his ward. When refused, Jimmy used to become so angry during these tirades his face turned scarlet like the contents of a decanter of port. Jimmy used to cycle everywhere, stopping off to greet Dalneigh residents who regularly gave him the highest vote in Inverness. He is long gone now, but fondly remembered in Dalneigh.
Next year will be the 350th anniversary of the first post-Cromwell race meeting but while horse racing is mere history in our city, if you google “Inverness horse racing” what comes up is the Inverness Raceway in Cape Breton, Canada, a stronghold of Scottishness, where the races began in 1926. So, a kind of continuity.
