As the inner track opens for the 2013 winter meet, a look back into the archives, for how this unique racing surface came to be: It was nearly 70 degrees in New York yesterday; warmer temperatures and delayed darkness have many of us thinking spring. And for New York racing fans, there is no surer…
Arising early last Saturday morning, I thought about August 3, 1863. I thought about what might have been going through John Morrissey’s mind on that summer morning 150 years ago, about how the guests in the downtown hotels might have prepared for the races, about the horse and carriage traffic jam that might have taken…
“A large concourse of people, including a host of the fashionables in carriages, turned out on Monday to enjoy the sport and excitement of the Races on the Saratoga Course.” Those words appeared in The Daily Saratogian on Aug. 4, 1863, the day after the first day of the first Saratoga meeting, the anniversary of…
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…
“There are no second acts,” wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald, “in American lives.” If the relationship between Sam-Son Farm and Malcolm Pierce is any indication, though, Fitzgerald’s oft-quoted words do not, it seems, apply to Canadians. In 1988, when Sam-Son won the first of the farm’s five Queen’s Plates, Pierce worked at the farm as an…
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…
If the only time you pay attention to horse racing is during the Triple Crown, you might think that going to the races is a fairly upmarket affair. Celebrity red-carpet entrances, features on famous horse owners, and segments on fashion, hats, and fancy cocktails are pretty much de rigeur in mainstream coverage and industry PR…
Brooklyn Backstretch 