‘A garden party with racing tacked on’ is how Bertie, Prince of Wales, once described the Goodwood Festival – known since Victorian times as Glorious Goodwood, and held on the estate that has been home to the dukes of Richmond for more than 300 years. And it’s this rambunctious royal that the glamorous race meeting has to thank for its idiosyncratic attitude to dressing. A regular attendee and Goodwood houseguest from the 1860s until his death in 1910, Edward VII – as he later became – had begun to feel ‘that the meeting was being undermined by those who were attempting to turn it into a fashion show,’ says Clementine de la Poer Beresford, curator of the Goodwood Collection.
So he acted, decisively. First, he promoted straw hats instead of toppers; then he wore a shooting coat rather than tails; and in 1906, four years after his coronation, he went the whole revolutionary hog and was photographed, says de la Poer Beresford, wearing ‘a lounge suit instead of morning suit and a grey bowler hat.’ Steady the Buffs! Goodwood is synonymous with horse racing: the 3rd Duke of Richmond held its first private race meeting there in 1801; it was so successful that a public race meeting was held the year after.
The family’s fondness for horses goes back to the origins of their association with the estate: the 1st Duke of Richmond (the illegitimate son of Charles II) first rented it in the 17th century to enjoy the local hunting, and went on to buy it in 1697. Gloriou.
