Zeidler Miklós: Sporting Spaces - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2000)

A DAY AT THE RACES ON THE TROTTING COURSE (1940)

edge of the City Park, on the premises of the millenary animal exhibition. Here (near today’s underground railway depot on Mexikói út) demonstration races were held as early as 1896. The horses, drivers and spectators of the Tattersall came to feel at home here in a few years’ time and in 1905 the new course was officially opened. Events were held here until 1933, and sometimes there were as many as five thousand spectators crowding the terraces.

Meanwhile, the Budapest Trotting Association purchased the lot on which the Tattersall lay and in 1933 the new course was in fact inaugurated. Ferenc Paul- heim Jr., the architect who designed the facility, had two magnificent, modern, covered grandstands raised along the home stretch of the 1,000-metre course. The stables, together with a smaller set of open terraces, were placed in the eastern curve. The course was fitted with an up-to-date lighting system, which is why an evening race could be part of the opening events on 31 August. In 1941, Paulheim built a new grandstand to connect the two existing terraces creating an aggregate capacity of 5,000 seats, with standing room for another 10,000 spectators on the ground. Soon after the siege of 1945 the facility was reconstructed and horse fans were quick to return to the course. Paul- heim’s superb covered manége was also restored, only

30