The name “Sagamore Farm” recalls racing royalty, both human and equine. Given to Alfred G. Vanderbilt, Jr. in 1933 by his mother, Sagamore bred and raced such equine luminaries as Native Dancer, Bed o’Roses, and Discovery; Vanderbilt himself served as president of Pimlico and chairman of the board of the New York Racing Association. The…
When New Yorkers rang in New Year 1913, they did not, as many of us do now, anticipate a day at the races. Even if tracks raced in the winter here then, New York was starting its third year without organized racing, the sport a victim of political activism that made gambling so onerous that…
It was tough to work up the enthusiasm for a year in review of racing for 2012. It was supposed to be the year in which New York racing finally put a decade of drama behind it, a decade of franchise uncertainty, of VLT procrastination, of bankruptcy and court cases. It was supposed to be…
Beginning in May 2013, the Saratoga 150 celebration will mark the sesquicentennial of the Thoroughbred racing in my hometown. The four-day program in 1863, inaugurated by John Morrissey, was such a success that he and his partners, among them William Travers and Leonard Jerome, built Saratoga Race Course in 1864. It is the oldest sporting…
On Sunday at Belmont, the Matron will be run for the 106th time – inaugurated in 1892, it was open to both fillies and colts until 1902. That year, it was run in two divisions: one for the colts, one for the fillies. The purse for the race was divided among them, if not exactly…
I am sleeping, I am told, in John Morrissey’s room. It’s on the second floor of the Adelphi Hotel, opening on one side to the grand Adelphi hallway, on the other to the iconic second floor piazza, three stories high, above street level, overlooking, but unobserved by, Broadway. I am told that Morrissey sat here…
Remember the trees? Remember the grass? Remember how they used to help a tired horseplayer forget about the losers? Remember Belmont? (Cady) In May 1968, Belmont Park re-opened after a nearly six-year renovation. During its absence from the New York racing scene, the horses ran at Aqueduct and Saratoga, the latter retaining its usual summer…
Once upon a time, there was a horse called Spinaway. She was a chestnut, and she was born in 1878. Pedigree Query says that she raced nine times and won seven races, and that her career ended when she was three, in 1881. That year, someone in Saratoga named after a stakes race for her.…
If you think that acrimony, turf wars, and internecine bickering in the racing industry are recent phenomena, a look at the 1877 Saratoga season will quickly disabuse you. While the opening of that meeting was greeted with the usual hyperbole, it was not without its controversy. Several weeks in advance of the July 25 opening…
“The weather was bright and warm, the track fast, and the betting lively.” So the New York Times described Alabama day, 1883. So far, we’re running neck and neck with that day 129 years ago: it’s a glorious, perfect Spa morning, and the track is indeed fast. The betting will, we can assume, be lively—indeed…
Brooklyn Backstretch 