The History Of Belmont Park

First opened in May 1905, Belmont Park providesconsider filly Ruffian's near-victory in a 1975
American Thoroughbred horse racing with one of its"battle-of-the-sexes" match race over Foolish
most spectacular venues. With the largest dirt coursePleasure, which ended tragically when several bones
in Thoroughbred racing - a whopping mile-and-a-halfin the former horse's leg snapped (the euthanized
main dirt track - Belmont Park features, among otherhorse is now buried in the infield).
things, the Jockey Club Gold Cup, MetropolitanOr think of the epic homestretch battle between
Handicap, and most importantly the Belmont Stakes,Affirmed and Alydar in 1978, which ultimately led to
the final race in America's Triple Crown. Most of theAffirmed's Triple Crown win. This last and longest of
great racehorses of the twentieth century havethe Triple Crown races serves up surprises with
competed there, including Secretariat, whose statueperhaps a bit more reliability than the Kentucky
graces the park paddock (and whose 31-lengthDerby or Preakness Stakes - witness Rags to Riches'
victory in the 1973 Belmont Stakes may well be thestunning 2007 victory, the first by a filly in over a
greatest feat in the history of horse racing).century.
It all begins with the Belmont Stakes. Named, mostThough it's often been subject to reconstruction
likely, for August Belmont, Sr. - himself a notableduring the storied 105 years of its existence, Belmont
man, not only the American representative of thePark retains a few vestiges of the original (now called
famous Rothschild banking family but also theOld) Belmont Park. The iron railings that border the
son-in-law of Commodore Matthew Perry, the Navyhorses' walking ring are relics of the park's original
official who in 1854 brokered the opening of Japan tograndstand (they were salvaged during demolition),
the West - the great stakes race, financed in part byas are the four stone pillars displayed on Hempstead
Belmont, first ran in 1867. In the early years notTurnpike (which date to the opening of the South
Belmont Park (which wasn't built until 1905) butCarolina Jockey Club in 1792).
Jerome Park Racetrack, in the Bronx, hosted thisThe original clubhouse and Turf and Field Club venues
popular race, the popularity of which helped towere destroyed during the 1950s, as was the
ensure the building of the eponymous Long IslandWidener Course, a seven-furlong straightaway cutting
venue, which was the largest of its kind at that time.diagonally through the training and main tracks which
(Ironically, its Nassau County location places it only ahad been introduced during Joseph E. Widener's long
few miles from the site of the 1665 meet that wastenure as the track's manager.
the first horse race ever held in North America.)Aside from its place in the history of racing, Belmont
The victory in that first Park race went to Tanya, aPark has its place in American pop culture as well. It's
filly. From that year on the Park has continued toinspired its own drink (the Belmont Breeze), has been
provide the platform for one unlikely, unheralded, orfeatured in movies and television ("The Odd Couple,"
hard-fought victory after another: Peter Pan in 1907,Woody Allen's Mighty Aphrodite, "Everybody Loves
the never-defeated Colin in 1908, Man O'War in 1920,Raymond"), and its own premier stakes race has
Citation in 1948. Because of its unusually long distancebeen televised yearly since 1960.
- one at which most three-year-olds have neverA little-known fact about Belmont: during the racing
raced - and its placement as the final leg of the Tripleban of 1910-12, the park made aviation history when
Crown, the Belmont Stakes set the scene for somethe Wright Brothers chose it as the final venue of
of horse racing's greatest triumphs and defeats:the international aerial tournament of 1902-10.