highly artificial kind of excellence was a real thing to the people
who took part in the show; for the spectators thrilled with
excitement, and applauded the popular victors. There was a whole set
of conventions which were generally understood--there was even a
new language. You were told that these "turnouts" were "nobby" and
"natty"; they were "swagger" and "smart" and "swell."

However, the horse was really a small part of this show; before one
had sat out an afternoon he realized that the function was in
reality a show of Society. For six or seven hours during the day the
broad promenade would be so packed with human beings that one moved
about with difficulty; and this throng gazed towards the ring almost
never--it stared up into the boxes. All the year round the
discontented millions of the middle classes read of the doings of
the "smart set"; and here they had a chance to come and see
them-alive, and real, and dressed in their showiest costumes. Here
was all the grand monde, in numbered boxes, and with their names
upon the programmes, so that one could get them straight. Ten
thousand people from other cities had come to New York on purpose to
get a look. Women who lived in boarding-houses and made their own
clothes, had come to get hints; all the dressmakers in town were
present for the same purpose.. Society reporters had come, with
notebooks in hand; and next morning the imitators of Society all
over the United States would read about it, in such fashion as this:
"Mrs. Chauncey Venable was becomingly gowned in mauve cloth, made
with an Eton jacket trimmed with silk braid, and opening over a
chemisette of lace. Her hat was of the same colour, draped with a
great quantity of mauve and orange tulle, and surmounted with birds
of paradise to match. Her furs were silver fox."