grandstands

It certainly looks like a roulette wheel.

The croupier looks creepier ...

An account of a court case at Down Assizes (Freeman's , Wednesday, March 11, 1840) centres around a "fraudulently constructed" roulette table at Downpatrick races, by means of which James Perkins cheated several people "of divers sums of money". Here's a snippet including a description of the dodgy roulette wheel. So roulette at a racecourse wasn't unheard of. BTW later in the account , after a witness was asked if he had played in the tent A pause ensued, which was sufficiently significant to cause the court to be convulsed with laughter, which was joined by the learned judge himself The defence counsel argued that a tent was not a house, so it wasn't covered by legislation concerning gaming houses. The judge sentenced Perkins to 3 months imprisonment and £100 fine, but the sentence was suspended pending a decision from the Court of Queen's Bench.

And in an account of "The Card-Cheating Case at Brighton" (Freeman's Monday, July 26, 1852) a witness says he had played roulette at races before this, and generally lost; he had never heard of anybody that won (a laugh). This suggests that roulette wheels at races (a) were commonplace and (b) fixed

... and in 1862 The plaintiff , on examination, stated that he kept a roulette table at races, and also used "bones" (dice) at races; was last convicted of gambling at Limerick; gave up going to races September last; he went to races with a roulette table for the purpose of opposing parties who had robbed him of £600 ... The jury found for the plaintiff one farthing damages

wow .. !

Hi, I'm an admin for a group called Test Cricket Photographs, and we'd love to have this added to the group!

what a great shot...

FAntastic photo...weird to look at that and think every single person in it is now dead....

Thats a bit morbid SandyEm lol. This was when there was a concrete 'velodrome' around the edge of the oval. In the early 1900s they actually ran professional motorcycle races on the track under lights in front of upwards of 40,000 people.

Note how forward curving and backward curving front forks must have been style choice that was 50/50 around this period! Weird.

2nd, 3rd, and 5th bike from the bottom appear to have a rear-curving aspect to their forks.

the so-called backwards curved forks are commonly found on stayers' bikes on the velodrome, that is, bikes designed to be motorpaced, (ridden behind a motorbike). In this massed start race (a Madison?) the forks would've allowed for really tight drafting off the other riders, but at the expense of handling. I'd imagine those rigs would've been bears to ride. But then look at the riders on the machines in question, not exactly skinny lightweights. American track cycling - the jazz age sport - was a game for tough professionals who could right tight and play hard.