Newmarket has a unique historic position as the acknowledged home of horseracing. Yet until now no book has provided a definitive history of Newmarket Heath, the key figures who contributed to its transformation from an untamed wilderness to the world's finest racing ground, and the origins and development of the Jockey Club. This comprehensive and authoritative book is the first to trace this history from its early beginnings to the present day and to show how and why the sport of horseracing developed on the heath and spread globally from that base. All of the turf's greatest racehorses and the larger-than-life characters integral to the heath's history are included, while a great wealth of paintings and prints (which provide the only visual evidence of how racing was conducted and what Newmarket looked like) are illustrated and analysed.