It was a beautiful summer day, the day of our return, and the fragrance of the flowers and the soft beauty of the green shrubbery lining the walks of the Saratoga course, and the flags flying and the band up there in the grandstand thumping out a lively tune, while the old crowds moved around…
“A fitting tribute to one of the stoutest supporters of the sport New York State has ever known.” So wrote the Daily Racing Form about the inaugural Sanford Stakes, named to honor a family from nearby Amsterdam, New York, that began racing its homebred horses at Saratoga in the 1880s. Beginning with General Stephen Sanford and continuing…
In June of 1913, the racing world slowly began to return to normal, or at least to a new normal, one in which bookmakers were banned and bets were made furtively, as customers tried to figure out how they could wager without running afoul of the law. In further good news for racing, within weeks…
When racing returned to New York State after nearly three years, shuttered due to stringent anti-gambling restrictions, the Brooklyn Handicap, first run in 1887, came with it. With survival, though, came transplantation, as the race was moved out of its eponymous borough, from the Gravesend track to Belmont Park. And with transplantation came a whiff…
…the owners of the race tracks in this vicinity are calling back the banished steeds of speed and bidding the admirers of the same to prepare for a Summer made joyous in the old way… —New York Times, March 1, 1913 Thoroughbred horse racing was back. It was May 30, 1913, when Belmont Park re-opened…
Through the last week of February 1913, racing fans waited with hope. Earlier in the month, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court had upheld a 1912 New York State Supreme Court ruling that a man making a private bet at a racetrack was not breaking the law, and that race track operators could not…
On February 23, 1913, the New York Times weighed in on the recent decision by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, which upheld the November 1912 New York State Supreme Court ruling that that a man making a private bet at a racetrack was not breaking the law, nor could race track operators be…
When racing and government collide, the residents of the state of New York have learned to be patient. We waited for a VLT operator to be named. We waited for a franchise operator to be chosen. We waited for a board to be selected. We wait, still, for NYRA’s next CEO to be appointed. One…
If you think that little of racing note takes place in New York in February these days, imagine a century ago, when, though home to a handful of racetracks, New York didn’t conduct racing in the winter. And in the winter of 1913, racing hadn’t taken place in the state since September of 1910. But…
The graded stakes run earlier this month at Aqueduct have been around for a while: the Toboggan was first run in 1890, the Withers in 1874. When racing came back to New York in 1913, both were renewed, both at Belmont Park. The Withers was run on May 31, the day after racing returned for…
Brooklyn Backstretch 