This week, for the first time in this site’s three year history, we have a guest post. T.J. Connick who has dazzled Colin’s Ghost readers with many insightful comments has written a brilliant piece on the long forgotten Jack Atkin. The iron horse Jack Atkin was beloved in his time but has been lost in the space between the present and his running days over a century ago. I hope the story of Jack Atkin by T.J. Connick will revive the lost memory of a worthy racer. — KM

Poking around in the attic of horse racing history will turn up some surprises, a seldom-visited section of the past can introduce a fresh face: once famous, long forgotten, and worthy of a restored place in the sun. Such is Jack Atkin.

A weight-carrying sprinter with many starts and many wins, Jack Atkin ran in the years leading up to racing’s banishment in many quarters. Learning of his racing exploits requires a good deal of digging, so it is hoped that this profile kindles new interest in a wonderful performer who is worth being remembered.

The son of Sain, out of El Salado, he was foaled at Barney Schreiber’s expansive Woodlands Farm in St. Louis County, Missouri in 1904. Nearly eight years later, Jack Atkin retired from racing to join his sire at Woodlands. The intervening years were an odyssey, fighting the heartless headwinds of anti-gambling fever that infected state governments from coast to coast.

Possessed of brilliant and overwhelming speed, he drew crowds of devoted fans, and inspired high praise from turf writers, trainers, jockeys, and even the laconic authors of racing charts. His appearance at a race meeting assured a good turnout, including a serious set of plungers who consistently bet him down to a short price. He broke records at distances from six to ten furlongs; he campaigned in all seasons; he ran many of the era’s best horses off their feet; and he performed with uncanny consistency for years on end.

Jack Atkin’s effect upon contemporaries was profound. From fans and supporters came adoration, from handicappers came punishing weight assignment, and from outclassed competition came capitulation. In six years of hard campaigning, Jack Atkin established himself a great star, but his fame did not endure. In life he emerged from obscurity with a career of great achievement; in the century since he has returned to the shadows.

Jack Atkin beat only one of his four opponents in his first race at Oakland, California on Saturday, February 3, 1906, an unrestricted four-furlong event for two-year-olds. The chart didn’t mince words, “Jack Atkin green.” At 60-1 and beaten 10 1/2 lengths, those in the crowd that day would never have imagined that they saw the debut of a racehorse who would face the starter 130 times more, compiling a record of 56 wins, 31 seconds, and 18 thirds. By the time he ran his 131st race, a handicap at Woodbine on September 23, 1911, he was no longer green.

Named for a bookmaker, Jack Atkin carried owner Barney Schreiber’s purple, orange sleeves, and red cap to victory at 23 race tracks in three countries. Feared in sprint races, he was believed invincible without heavy weight assignments from the handicapper. He also ran 38 races at distances from a mile to a mile-and-a-quarter, in which he recorded 9 wins, 12 seconds, and 8 thirds.

Regarded as a serious contender for the prestigious New York Futurity and the Kentucky Derby before injury kept him from both events, he was the nation’s top purse winner among five-year-olds and up in 1909 and 1910. He ran 112 races from the May 9 commencement of a belated 3-year-old campaign to his final victory in the Tampico Handicap in Juarez on December 10, 1910. In the three-and-a-half busy years he was never fully out of training, with only two short absences dictated more by the logistics of his stable’s far-flung, international operations than by any need for rest.

His record fails to communicate the effect that Jack Atkin had upon observers, and speed alone does not explain it. The answer seems to lie in the beautiful action and response of Jack Atkin on the track. The big colt moving over a piece of ground evidently made an electric impression on his audience.

A rangy, powerful-looking creature, he regularly made sudden, nimble moves that were well remembered, win or lose. In victory, such moves were followed by a machine-like shift to a frictionless glide, cruising under the wire without effort. News accounts, sports columns, running lines, and chart comments, all seemingly declared in unison throughout his long career: “Boy, you should have seen Jack Atkin.”

Part II: The Racing Career of Jack Atkin

SOURCES, NEWS, AND NOTES

Author T.J. Connick provided this insightful commentary regarding his research:

As a subject of study, Jack Atkin is obscure because secondary sources have little to tell us. Fortunately, bound copies of the Morning Telegraph and Daily Racing Form chart books yield the horse’s compelling story in the familiar shorthand of the race chart. Jack Atkin’s career was extraordinary in many ways: winning at 23 different tracks, scoring 56 victories, toting heavy weight, racing four seasons, producing startling form reversals by winning “beyond his distance”, etc. Nothing can match a comprehensive database of charts to paint the big picture without missing any of the details.

To complement the charts, contemporary news accounts and racing columns by the likes of Bert Collyer (Chicago American) and W.C. Vreeland (Brooklyn Eagle) revealed the horse’s “star appeal”, portraying a remarkably popular racing personality. The amount of racing coverage in the era’s newspapers never fails to amaze, and we’re fortunate indeed to have electronic access to the treasure by the good graces of individuals and organizations like Kentuckiana Digital Library (Daily Racing Form collection), Tom Tryniski (FultonHistory.com), Library of Congress (Chronicling America), and University of California Riverside (California Digital Newspaper Collection).

Be sure to check back tomorrow for part two of the Jack Atkin story….thanks for reading and good luck!

Written by T.J. Connick, Copyright 2011 by Strategic Arts, Inc.

In 1911, one hundred years ago this month, Laurel Park opened for business. Laurel started during a track building boom in Maryland. With racing dark in New York because of a gambling ban, and racing legal in only a handful of states, Maryland opened Laurel, Havre de Grace, and Bowie race tracks in a short span of four years.

With Pimlico – the grand-daddy of all the Maryland tracks — already thriving, the state seemed poised to take over the role as the center of American racing, a title previously held by New York. While the shift to Maryland as a primary racing hub was thwarted by the re-opening of the New York tracks in 1913, the state had a long and prosperous stretch spanning much of the twentieth century.

The opening of Laurel marked the beginning of the golden years of Maryland racing and has been the site for a multitude of important racing moments. We have focused a great deal on the Washington D.C. International in past postings about Laurel, but this week, in celebration of its centennial, let’s go back to the beginning. What follows are a series of quotes from newspaper accounts about Laurel Park’s opening day one hundred years ago:

“Current Sporting Gossip,” The (New York) Sun, 1 October 1911:

Racing within reach of New Yorkers will begin at Laurel, Maryland tomorrow, when the new mile track built by H.D. Brown, the well known promoter, is thrown open to the public. The plant has involved an outlay of $250,000, and Brown has met with encouragement from the stewards of the Jockey Club together with the patronage of some of the best known horsemen in the country. The track can be reached by trolley from Washington in less than half an hour, while from Baltimore it is one hour’s journey by steam. Under the laws of Maryland open bookmaking is legal so that probably thirty pencillers will line up in the betting ring.

The H.D. Brown referenced above was better known as Curly Brown. He was an important but elusive player in racing during a period starting in the early 1900s into the 1930s. The California businessman (as he came to be described) promoted, managed, and owned race tracks in Louisiana, Florida, Chicago, and Cuba (to name a few) during his career. He was the original owner of Laurel Park but sold it just three years after it opened.

“Racing at Laurel starts tomorrow,” Washington Herald, 1 October 1911:

All day yesterday there was hurry and bustle around the new racing plant of the Maryland State Fair Association, between the arrival of horses from New York and Canada, and other racing centers and the visiting of lovers of the thoroughbred, who have read and heard so much of Laurel as a racing center…

…There had not been a case of sickness at the track and the stables are built on a high elevation which makes them dry and fit to stable in at all times, and under all weather conditions. This is one point on which Manager [H.D.] Brown is particularly strong, He believes in looking after the horsemen as well as the public, and in his way draws many more to race with him than by overlooking them.

“Laurel Track to Have Slow Going,” Washington Times, 2 October 1911:

The new racing venture at Laurel starts its thirty day meeting this afternoon with an excellent program of six races…

…Unfortunately, these events will have to be run off over a slow track rendered doubly slow by the rainfall of last night. This circumstance will, undoubtedly, cause many scratches, and will give the handicappers a puzzling task to locate the winners. Speculators, indeed, will be treading on dangerous ground all through the meeting, and at times discretion will be better part of valor…

…Carpenters and laborers were hustling every minute of the day getting the plant in shape for the opening and work will be kept up to the very moment when the bugle blows for the first race this afternoon.

“Rain Makes Heavy Going at Laural,” Washington Times, 3 October 1911:

It was a most parlous [precarious] day for a new enterprise to make its initial bow to the public, and conditions were about as bad as they could be.

Rain mud and confusion were everywhere, yet for all that a crowd of at least 3,000 people turned out. With fair weather and normal conditions the attendance would easily have been 5,000…

…The program which held forth a glorious promise on its face was shot to death by scratches. The track, new and not yet worked into shape, was rendered a quagmire by the rain, and owners scratched until the tuck [energy] was taken out of nearly every event. Notwithstanding this, there were some warm contents and close finishes, which gave the crowd a chance to work off some of its pent-up enthusiasm…

…Washington and Baltimore contributed in about equal proportions, trains being run from each city right up to the track of the grandstand. A big contigent from New York was also on hand. The old guard, the regulars who follow the game from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Canada to the Gulf, were there, as they always will be, whenever the bell taps and the bugle blows.

Pimlico and Laurel ran concurrently in 1911 and the New York Sun wrote on the eve of Laurel’s first opening day: “…Maryland will be the centre of racing in this country for a month and will compel the sport in Canada to take a back seat.” However, it also stated: “It remains to be seen whether both of these Maryland tracks can survive competition, whether there will be enough patrons to cover running expenses and whether enough good horses can be secured to provide really high class racing.”

While the concerns of 100 years ago didn’t stop Laurel, it’s interesting that the same issues about its survival have come back albeit in a different form. Laurel no longer worries about competition from within but competition from neighboring states that is further amplified by the general decline of the sport in recent years. It seems a long shot that racing will survive another 100 years at Laurel, one of the last two remaining racing venues in the once proud racing state of Maryland.

SOURCES, NEWS, AND NOTES

“Current Sporting Gossip,“ The (New York) Sun, 1 October 1911

“Racing at Laurel starts tomorrow,” Washington Herald, 1 October 1911

“Laurel Track to Have Slow Going,” Washington Times, 2 October 1911

“Rain Makes Heavy Going at Laural,“ Washington Times, 3 October 1911

Check out some great Laurel photos and historical highlights from a site called Press Box

Next week we will have our first article authored by T.J. Connick.  You know T.J. from the detailed contributions he has made to this site (and others) in the comments section.  T.J. has written an outstanding piece about a long forgotten horse named Jack Atkin that I will be posting next week

Thanks for reading and good luck!

I was inspired over the weekend reading Glenye Cain Oakford’s outstanding piece for the Daily Racing Form about the history of Keeneland. In fact, it might be the best history piece I have ever read in the DRF. It is a meticulously researched with an incredibly thoughtful selection of quotes from a variety of primary sources.

As I was reading Oakford’s Keeneland history, I remembered a piece from one of my all-time favorite race writers and thought it would be appropriate to post this week.

The piece I would like to share is from the great Joe Palmer, newly inducted member to the Racing Hall of Fame’s Media Roll of Honor. The article comes from This Was Racing the compilation of Palmer’s writing put together after his untimely death in October 1952.

The article is undated but the date of its publication isn’t  important.  The important thing to know is that Palmer had been in Kentucky working at the Bloodhorse for about one year when Keeneland opened its doors in 1935. He was there from the beginning. He knew the character Jack Keene and the men who made Keeneland a reality. His recollections of Keene and the track that bears his name are an absolute treasure.

Here is the late, great Joe Palmer’s “Keeneland, With Keene” in its entirety:

After Bowie and Jamaica, and even Havre de Grace which has kept some of its original friendly tone, it was like old slippers and a last cigarette before the fire to have a day’s racing at Keeneland. It may be just because of a sentimental recollection, for when this onlooker drank his first julep in the big stone clubhouse there it was still the property of John Oliver Keene, a man with a peculiar vision, who, nevertheless, did not anticipate the monument to his memory that Keeneland had become.

Jack Keene, as he was called all over the country — what the Russians called him when he trained there I cannot say, but it was unprintable because he won so many races — was a blunt, sincere, gruff, and fundamentally kind man, with a high standard of perfection. If he had engineered the Pyramid of Ceops he would have decided that two or three more twenty-foot layers of stone would have made it better, and he would have got them too whatever objections the Egyptian treasurer might have made.

He built a track at Ashland in the early twenties which may stir a few vague memories with the name of Raceland. It was to cost about $350,000 — dollars were dollars in those days — by the original plans, but when Keene got through the bill was nearer $750,000, because he kept on seeing ways he could make it better and he kept on riding over the stockholders, who could see red ink in every sunset. The stockholders were right too; Raceland did not even leave a ghost.

The point is that when Jack Keene started to build, it was the thing to be done, or perhaps just the slow and satisfying dream of doing it, which outweighed the material considerations. So when he set about building Keeneland – as a private training track and a place to entertain his friends, mind you – it was fairly obvious to these same friends that the vision would outpace construction.

Henry Kaiser couldn’t build as fast as Keene could dream. Why he wanted a mile and a sixteenth track instead of the conventional mile this onlooker couldn’t say. Why he wanted a clubhouse which now houses the office of Keeneland, a library, a couple of dining rooms, an apartment or so, and still leaves spaces for some 800 people to see the races, isn’t quite clear, either; nor why he wanted stalls for a hundred horses in training.

In the nature of things he ran out of money — of building money, that is, though he still held the track of land that Patrick Henry had granted to his ancestors in the days when Kentucky was part of the Old Dominion [Virginia] and he still could maintain his stud and racing stable. But matters were easier all around when he sold off the section which is now Keeneland, for approximately $100,000 to the group of men who founded the present Keeneland track.

These men — Hal Price Headley, Major Louie A. Beard, and others — had a vision, too, but theirs took in things like bank balances and tangible assets, and they built a racetrack solid and four-square and satisfactorily financed, and essayed the first venture in the fall of 1935.

This tourist does not customarily pay much attention to the totalisator but [in 1935] we watched that one like a flock of cats around a mouse hole, though I am aware that this simile is both ill-chosen and somewhat mixed. It ran-up, in ten days of racing, approximately what is bet on the last race at Jamaica any Saturday. The average was $56,000 a day, and you will get some idea of the husbandry of the Keeneland organization when I say that was enough.

Well, things have come on since, and no one has to watch the totalisator any more. The big stables gave generously of their horses, even when they ran for peanuts. The officers not merely served without salary; they paid their way in. They put the thing on a non-profit basis when it seemed the non-profit angle would take care of itself, and universities and foundations have reaped the returns which came later.

What a beautiful thing that all these many years later, Keeneland continues as it did when Palmer wrote these words. I, like Palmer, have a real appreciation for Keeneland’s operation. As it says on their website “Keeneland operates as a for-profit with a non-profit mission.” This philosophy is how many successful non-profits work and one that seems perfect for racing. It’s amazing what can be done when a race track doesn’t have to answer to shareholders and sees its role as community sustaining instead of simply bottom line profit driven. Certainly, not every track can be Keeneland but it would behoove all those involved in racing to see its operating model, where profits are reinvested back into the community, as the ideal.

Sources, News, and Notes

Joe Palmer, This Was Racing, edited by Red Smith (1953)

Here is the link to Glenye Cain Oakford’s tremendous Keeneland history in the Daily Racing Form. Needless to say, it is well worth a read or two.

Read more about Joe Palmer in an article from Bloodhorse about his recent honor from the Racing Hall of Fame

Brief history of Keeneland from their press office

Thanks for reading and good luck!

Yes, the marketing people at NYRA prefer “Super Saturday” but it will always be Jockey Club Gold Cup day to me. Saturday brought a stable of stars to the big oval at Belmont and most would agree that we saw a few horses that will be major players come Breeders Cup in November.

We lost the likely favorite for the Breeders Cup Turf, Cape Blanco, who was injured while winning the Joe Hirsch, but winners on the day like Havre de Grace, Stacelita, Uncle Mo, and Flat Out will all be bet heavily on Breeders Cup weekend.

The most intriguing of those four is Havre de Grace who continued her brilliance by easily winning the historic Beldame.  All indications are pointing for her to start in the Breeders Cup Classic.  If that is the case, it will be an opportunity to have a filly win the “big race” for two out of the last three years.  The Golden Age of fillies and mares continues. Let’s hope we see her in the Classic lined up against Uncle Mo, Flat Out, Game on Dude, and Tizway. I think she has a huge shot to beat whatever field she might face and a win in the Classic would make her a major player for Horse of the Year. She would be the third straight female to win that award which would be an unprecedented streak.

As always, Saturday at Belmont was great fun.  It’s amazing the number of people I have connected with by starting this site.  Anyone who thinks that racing is an “old persons” sport should tag along with me to the track sometime. There is a new generation of racing fans that are a dedicated and enthusiastic group.

Speaking of dedicated and enthusiastic groups, I am proud to be part of a new racing initiative being spearheaded by the talented Valerie Grash of Foolish Pleasure and Fillies First fame. The group is called TURF and the site went live this week. Valerie has assembled quite an esteemed group of racing writers, be sure to check it out: http://www.turfbloggers.blogspot.com/

I’ll be back next week with more racing history. In the meantime, here are a couple of photographs I snapped of the big day at Belmont:

I won’t be making the trip to Breeders Cup this year so this past Saturday was one of my last track visits of 2011.  Another racing season has flown by, before we know it we will be talking about the Derby colts again.

Thanks for reading and good luck!

This Saturday October 8th from 10am to 5pm the beautiful town of Havre de Grace, Maryland will host the fourth annual Graw Days Festival to celebrate the race track that made the town famous. The track at Havre de Grace, known by the locals as “The Graw,” opened in 1912 and closed in 1950. (read more about it here).

Graw Days is always a great event and the Colin’s Ghost crew will be in attendance this year. Hope to see you there!

You can learn more about Graw Days at the Havre de Grace Main Street information page or check out the Graw Days Facebook page for additional details and the latest information.

OK, maybe the title is a bit provocative, especially for those who love the 3-year-old classics. However, there is plenty of evidence for making a good case that the Jockey Club Gold Cup is, historically, a solid contender for the title of America’s greatest race.

For race fans of my generation who have always known racing with the Breeders Cup, looking back on the former end-of-year races is always a worthwhile history lesson. Listening to those who remember the pre-Breeders Cup era, I have found that most are rather disgusted by what the BC has done to races like the Jockey Club Gold Cup, sadly relegating them to mere prep races. Unfortunately for them, the BC “Championship” genie is out of the bottle and unlikely to go away anytime soon. Having said that, I think it’s important to remember what the former championship races meant to the sport.

A few years back I did a story about the JCGC and its influence on the Horse of the Year Award. As I wrote then, prior to the Breeders Cup, and since the beginning of an official Horse of the Year Award (1936 to 1983), 40% of horses who won the JCGC were awarded the Horse of the Year. If we count up to the present (1936-2010), approximately 31% of the race’s winners won Horse of the Year. [Sidenote: During the Breedrer’s Cup era, from 1984 to 2010, eleven of twenty-seven (41%) Breeders Cup Classic winners were voted Horse of the year].

This year, I decided to take a different approach to further prove my point that the JCGC deserves to rank among the most significant races in America. Of the countless numbers of horses born and raced in the United States over the last one hundred and fifty years, less then two hundred have been honored in Racing’s Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, New York. Only an infinitesimal number of the whole population count themselves as legends among the forgotten. Keeping that in mind, The Jockey Club Gold Cup, since it was run for the first time in 1919 until the end of the last century, has seen an astounding number of future legends win the race or finish among the top three.

Get this: In the 20th Century (1919 to 1999), in eighty-one editions of the Jockey Club Gold Cup, a future Hall of Famer finished among the top three forty-eight times (59%). If we just look at the winners, thirty-two (40%) were won by a future Hall of Famer, including multiple winners Nashua (1955-56), Shuvee (1970-71), Slew of Gold (1983-84), Skip Away (1995-96), and, of course, five time winner Kelso (1960 to 1964). Of the seven horses who won the race multiple times, only Mad Hatter (1921-22) and Dark Secret (1933-34) are not members of Racing’s Hall Of Fame. Of those two, I think a strong case could be made that Dark Secret deserves a place among the immortals in Saratoga.

Another interesting note, during the eighty one editions run in the twentieth century, five had a 1-2 finish of Hall of Famers:

1942 – Whirlaway – Alsab
1950 – Hill Prince – Noor
1959 – Sword Dancer – Round Table
1979 – Affirmed – Spectacular Bid
1996 – Skip Away – Cigar.

Five of the eleven Triple Crown winners count the JCGC as a win on their career resume. Two Triple Crown winners finished second. Whirlaway was beaten by a former $1000 claimer named Market Wise in 1941 but returned to beat future Hall of Famer Alsab in 1942. Seattle Slew – in a race remembered as one of his greatest – lost by a nose to Excellor in 1978.

Of the three horses that usually round out the top three places when ranking the greatest of all-time, Citation (1948) and Man O’ War (1920) both won the JCGC. Secretariat never raced in the JCGC but his broodmare sire, Princequillo, won it in 1943.

Similar statistics could easily be built around any of the 3-year-old classic races but few unrestricted races could stand next to the JCGC for its roster of legendary entries and winners.

When looking over the history of the Jockey Club Gold Cup, the gates rarely opened without a legend breaking out among what are now long forgotten rivals. While numbers make a strong case for its place among this country’s greatest races, it’s the names that appear in the charts that stand as the strongest evidence of all.

SOURCES, NEWS, AND NOTES

The program pages are courtesy of Ron Micetic, who is a long-time friend to this site. He has a large and impressive collection of historic programs and is always on the look out for new stuff. If you have old programs looking for a home, contact Ron at rmicetic@hotmail.com.

This was an interesting exercise and I will no doubt use this formula when writing about important races in the future. I think it would be interesting to conduct a similar study with the three Triple Crown races. I also think that the Suburban, Woodward, Met Mile, and Santa Anita Handicap might also make for an interesting study.

A few articles that are well worth a read came across my desk this week:
“Giving Jack his Due” from Linda at the Pennsylvania Thoroughbred
and
“Making Time Stand Still” from Valerie at Foolish Pleasure

Check out all the posts about the Jockey Club Gold Cup at Colin’s Ghost

I’ll in the house at Belmont Park on Saturday. While the gamblers are grumbling about the short fields, I don’t see a thing to complain about with the list of big name horses on the bill. I am looking forward to a great day of racing…let’s hope the weather is cooperative. I’ll see you there!

Thanks for Reading and Good Luck!

One hundred and forty-five years ago next week, Jerome Park in New York opened for business. While it lasted less then 30 years, it’s opening marked a key moment in the history of New York racing.

In Steven Reiss’s outstanding The Sport of Kings and the Kings of Crime, he wrote that critics at the time “immediately recognized [Jerome] as the finest turf facility in the United States.” Jerome was an important racing venue, hosting the early editions of the Belmont Stakes, but it also became, in the words of the Spirit of the Times in 1881, “…the favored shrine, the Mecca of all that was cultured refined, and fashionable in New York society.”  If one were to look for the “moment” in U.S. history when horse racing moved from a rural pastime to a city sport, the opening of Jerome Park is as significant an event as you will find.

The physical plant and configuration of Jerome Park would be unfamiliar to the modern race goer. The race conditions at Jerome would be something that today’s race fan would find strange. However, the same desire that draws a diverse collection of people to the spectacle of racing today, existed many years ago in New York when Jerome Park opened. It was this idea that bubbled to the surface as I read through accounts of its 1866 opening.

One of the best accounts of Jerome’s opening day comes from an unidentified writer in the New York Daily Tribune who writes more like an overwrought novelist then reporter. The unknown author’s colorful and, at times, inscrutable description of the first day of racing at Jerome Park has a number of gems that are worth reviving. Here are a few selections from the New York Daily Tribune story about opening day on September 26, 1866:

Country folk and portly citizens have all turned out in their most gorgeous raiment [clothing] to witness the beginning of a new Olympiad in the art of horse breaking. On the ridge at the base of the yon heavily wooded fringe are grouped in thick masses at least 20,000 people of different classes and castes in the social estate, all eager and showing every tension to get a glance of the heroic quadrupeds who have made fame synonymous with their names in the history of the American Turf..

While describing the physical structure of the new plant, the author returned to describing the crowd:

…Here in the central or Club stand are seated the elite of the wealth, commercial enterprise, beauty and refinement of the city, whose waters receive tribute from the furthest extremities of the globe. Here are merchants clad in fine linen and broadcloth, whose ships cover every sea and flutter their white canvas in every port, from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, putting to utter shame the boasted riches of the haughty burghers of Genoa and Venice. Here are prosperous tradesmen…who have seen hosts go forth to do battle for the flag, equipped out of their own purses, with a generosity and public spirit that had no parallel…

The reference in the last line, no doubt, refers to the Civil War and the economic contributions that some businessmen made to the war effort.

…As for the ladies, how could pen describe the magnificence of the costumes worn by them or the exquisite blending of every known tint or color. Looking on the Grand Stand for a moment at the confusion of silks, satins, velvets, and jewels, it requires but a very slight effort in the imagination to be deceived into the idea that this is after all an opera matinee…

After the describing the wealthy class and beautifully dressed women, the author pointed his descriptive eye to the ground level among the masses:

…Directly fronting the Grand Stand are assembled in all the principal sporting and betting men of the metropolis, some of them with hardened features, and all with keen eyes and wits ready to take advantage of the unwary or verdant who may have an itching to squander their hard earned dollars. Scattered around the Course are several well-known pugilists, who left the ring and the boxing arena for a few days to enjoy the country freshness and rural hospitality…

…fashionably-dressed gamblers and blacklegs [aka “cardsharps”] infest the vicinity of the main stand, but owing to the strict rules enforced by the management they are like Othello without an occupation, and can do no harm to the innocents…

…Outside the picket fences surrounding the enclosure there are thousands of spectators congregated, who have not the dollar to pay the admission fee, and are compelled, therefore, to elongate their necks to distinguish the horses about to run. The rules declare that no liquor shall be sold on the ground, but enterprising tradesmen and hucksters pitch their tents as near the enclosure as they dare, and entice the thirsty souls from the excitements of the race…

In addition to representatives from every strata of society, also in attendance for opening day was the hero of the recently ended Civil War, General Ulysses S. Grant. While today’s racing crowd no longer enjoys the company of future presidents, it does partake in liquor (for an inflated price) and gamble (with the blessing of state government), two activities explicitly (although ineffectively) banned by the owners of Jerome Park. As strange as looking back is for us, it would be equally strange if the racegoers in 1866 could look ahead to 2011.

Jerome Park is long gone, buried under a city reservoir now surrounded by city sprawl. It’s legacy as the first of the New York City race tracks, progenitor of the current Belmont and Aqueduct Race Tracks, is one that shouldn’t be forgotten.

 

Sources, News, and Notes

“The American Jockey Club,” New York Daily Tribune, 1866 September 26

Quotes in the second paragraph from Steven Reiss, The Sport of Kings and the Kings of Crime (Syracuse University Press, 2011)

For more on Jerome Park check out this post from Brooklyn Backstretch

1872 map at the New York Public Library showing Jerome Park

Google map view of the Jerome Park site

The countdown to the end of the racing season begins. I will be at Belmont Park on October 1st for what is shaping up to be a big day of racing. Hope to see you there!

Thanks for reading and good luck…

 

The opening of Belmont Park in the Fall is an important marker for racing fans. The Belmont Fall meet marks the beginning of the end of the racing season. It’s a meet where horses make their final push for end of the year honors. Kelso, Seattle Slew, Affirmed, Citation, Whirlaway, and Man O’ War (to name a few) all won memorable races in the chill of the Belmont Fall to solidify there place among racing’s all-time greats.

Of the many tracks that I have written about in this space, Belmont Park stands as one of the most featured. In fact, the second post ever at Colin’s Ghost was about opening day at Belmont Park. So I was excited to find that the Official souvenir and stake program of the inaugural meeting of the Westchester Racing Association published back in 1905 had been digitized and is online at the Internet Archive.

I spent some time over the weekend studying the content of what was the first-ever publication describing the new track. In it you will find a detailed description of the original grounds as well as images of the site and advertisements that provide insight into the type of patrons who would have thumbed through the souvenir program many years ago.

Here is a sampling of quotes, images, and a few of my favorite ads (view the program in its entirety):

It is no stretch of imagination to say that Belmont Park, the future “Home of the Thoroughbred,” for which The Westchester Racing Association stands sponsor, is the most magnificent race-course in the world.

Nature, money and brains have been united into a combination which has given to the American public an ideal resort for the Sport of Kings.’

The vastness of the grounds, on which are erected the necessary impressive buildings, can be better appreciated when it is stated that it is a tract of land covering a space of over six hundred acres. This in itself gives a faint idea of the immensity of the undertaking which has transformed a vast area, studded with trees and of sandy loam, into a magnificent roomy pleasure park, the like of which no other country can boast.

The entrance to the grounds proper is lined by numerous rhododendrons, and is thickly studded, on each side, with rows of stately pine and chestnut trees, which, in a measure, prepare the visitor for the grandeur of what is to come…

…All events at this race-course will be run the reverse way to that with which the public is familiar, i. e.: all turns will be made to the right, in lieu of to the left. This wise move was adopted so as to permit a more advantageous location of the various buildings, and also to fulfill the requirements as to the direction of the sun’s rays…

I have read many times over the years that the decision to run clockwise in the early years of Belmont Park was to mimic the direction of the English turf. However, according to this primary source, the reasons were less of an aesthetic choice and had more practical reasons.

…Here, then, is a pleasure Park of unsurpassed beauty within a few minutes’ ride of the Metropolis and Brooklyn, where the conveniences and comforts of the public have been a paramount study to the minutest detail, where a day’s outing is to be obtained ‘midst the wafting of invigorating pine breezes and health-laden air, where the great classic turf events of The Westchester Racing Association will be contested for all time to come by the noblest of all brute creation, ‘the thoroughbred,’ and where the American racehorse will find a perfect and perpetual home.

For over a century, Belmont has remained a perfect and perpetual home for man and beast alike. Most of the remaining structures from the original Belmont Park were razed during a major renovation in the 1960s. While the patrons who attended the races in the early years would hardly recognize the facility today, they would find recognition in looking out over the vast 1 ½ mile oval. The buildings may have been modernized but the field of competition has changed little over the last 106 years.

Sources, News, and Notes

Official souvenir and stake program of the inaugural meeting of the Westchester Racing Association : under the auspices of the Jockey Club and the National Steeplechase and Hunt Association, at Belmont Park, beginning Thursday, May 4th, 1905 — Available in its entirety at the Internet Archive

The program also included advertisements for the other New York jockey clubs operating tracks in the area at that time. The one on the right is the Coney Island ad.

The homestretch to the racing season has arrived! I will be at Belmont Park on October 1st for Jockey Club Gold Cup day. It’s shaping up to be an epic day of racing.

Thank for reading and good luck!

News came out over the weekend about the sad fate of jockey Jacky Martin. The legendary quarter horse jockey was paralyzed from the neck down when his mount fell at Ruidoso Downs. Martin joins a long list of jockeys whose career ends as a result of a serious and life-altering injury. Serious injuries are only part of the dangers jockeys face. Since 1940, approximately two jockeys die every year as the result of on-track incidents.

There is no other profession in sports as dangerous as being a jockey. In recent years, safety equipment has been improved, and tracks are now better equipped to respond to injuries, making it somewhat safer. However, the jockey profession, like the mechanics of the sport, hasn’t changed much over the years. It is, and always has been, a career filled with tremendous risk to life and limb.

In 1975, jockey Alvaro Pineda was killed when his horse reared in the starting gate at Santa Anita resulting in a fatal blow to the rider’s head. Red Smith, reflecting on the incident, wrote,

…every time a jockey gathers the reins on a thoroughbred he is taking his life in his hands. He knows it and it is a fact that ought to be remembered, perhaps, by horseplayers who risk only their money and do not hesitate to blackguard  the kid who is putting his life on the line.

At 29, Pineda had spent half his life in the saddle and there must have been times he got off a loser and heard himself reviled as a crook or a coward or both by some sportsman who had dropped $2 on his mount. Chances are when he rode there were clients prepared to give him the treatment if his horse didn’t win.”

Red Smith quoted jockey legend Eddie Arcaro who had been retired for more then a decade in 1975 but still stood as the most well-known rider in America. Arcaro said this to Smith on the possibility of dying on the job:

You know it can happen…but when you’re riding you don’t think about it. You’re doing it every day and everybody else is doing the same thing and — hell, if you thought about it you just couldn’t stand the tension…

…I had five or six of my best friends killed…it’s bad but when you sign your name on your license you know that’s part of it.”

The dangers to jockeys have always existed in racing. In 1887, there was a story written about the life of a jockey. The piece appeared in New York papers at a time when racing was starting to emerge as a big-time urban sport and likely served as an introduction to the profession for readers in its day. With the exception of age (jockeys started in the business at age 12 back then), some aspects of a jockey’s life found in the article from over a century ago ring true today, including the inherent dangers of the job. The unnamed reporter wrote this in 1887:

The dangers of a jockey’s life are very great. They may be thrown in a race at any time and be trampled to death by horses behind them. The horse they are riding may fall down and by rolling on them kill them. Very often they get so crowded in a race against other horses or against the rails that their legs are broken and sometimes the horses they handle are so savage that they kick and bite the boys. When a boy decides to become a jockey he must make up his mind to either make his fortune or to break his neck.

The dangers of riding race horses is as old as the sport itself, as are the qualities of a jockey so beautifully summarized by Red Smith in 1975:

…There are two qualities [jockeys] have in common or they don’t ride; they are athletes and they are brave. When ‘outstanding athlete’ awards are passed around, jockeys hardly ever get a call, yet pound for pound they can match anybody for fitness, strength, quick reflexes, versatility, cool judgment and plain courage.

Try to argue with that. No job in sports matches the dangers of jumping on the back of a racehorse. It’s been true for centuries and it is still true today. As the great Red Smith wrote nearly 40 years ago, this is something horse players should always keep in mind.

SOURCES, NEWS, AND NOTES

Red Smith, “Death at the Starting Gate,” The Day, 20 January 1975

“Boys Taught To Ride,” Aurora Daily Express, 24 August 1887

The Permanently Disabled Jockeys Fund is a non-profit organization that assists jockeys that “suffered catastrophic on-track injuries.” Contributions can be made on their website — please take a look and consider donating.

While researching this piece, I found an insightful history written by Eddie Arcaro about the Jockey’s Guild  — an organization that has been crucial in representing those in the profession.

A piece at goerie.com, also published this past week (h/t Equidaily), looks at the same topic: “It’s dangerous riding atop a speeding horse”

Read more about jockey legends Eddie Arcaro and Bills Hartack at Colin’s Ghost

Thanks for reading and good luck!

I have been on the road this past week. I had a whirlwind tour through the mid-west with stops in Kenosha and Madison, Wisconsin and a few days in Chicago. Someone told me there was a hurricane AND an earthquake here while I was away — sorry I missed that. Since I have been traveling I didn’t have time to put together a Colin’s Ghost piece but I do have two posts of interest at Hello Race Fans that I would like to share.

This Saturday is a big day at Saratoga for fillies and mares with the rescheduled running of the Personal Ensign and Havre de Grace taking on the boys in the Woodward. To get set for Saturday’s races, head over to Hello Race Fans to read the profile I wrote about Personal Ensign and a “Ten Things” about the race named in her honor. While you are over there, click around and check it out. It’s an excellent site for racing information and a great place for beginners and advanced horseplayers to learn about racing and handicapping.

Horse Profile: Personal Ensign

Ten Things You Should Know: Personal Ensign Stakes

I’ll be back next week with a new history article. If you are in need of a racing history fix before then, take a look at this week’s post at Brooklyn Backstretch titled “Mr Woodward at the Spa.”

Go Havre de Grace and good luck to all this weekend!