Betting on Horses

As a popular pastime on the American frontier, horse racing could always draw a crowd to admire and bet on horseflesh. Realizing its appeal, boosters of the nascent West Texas community of San Angelo used horse racing to attract investors and settlers and to distance themselves from competing communities in the Concho Valley.

Betting on Horses: Racing as an Economic Development Tool in Frontier West Texas, 1886-1896, explores how San Angelo promoters incorporated racing into their boosterism, sending local horses across the nation and broadening the community's national exposure and reputation. Betting on Horses is the story of one frontier town's efforts to survive and thrive as it vied with competitors for the telegraph, for the railroad, for exposure that would attract investors and for its long-term survival.

Too, it's the story of Concho Valley racehorses like Belle P, Get There, Hal Fisher and Viola Belle, who raced on tracks from San Francisco to New York and from Chicago to New Orleans. Most famous of all the San Angelo racers was Charley Wilson, the star-crossed chestnut with the gigantic stride that beat fabled California mare Geraldine in two out of three races but was later tarnished in a cheating scandal.

Betting on Horses offers a fresh look at the role of horses in frontier life and boosterism.