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OLD TIME NEW YOHK RACE TRACKS. Courses Over Which Racing Was Carried on Before the War of the Revolution. "With Um tlosiiiR .f the- BstsjMta Iteaoh and Slieei sl,ul l.nv rare Uacka i few .veins back the liorsMiicii ar. riitiiiuleel." says the New York Herald, "that the map of New York covers many forgotten ourses where runners and trotters in days Ions pone by hard fought out races which still live in turf history and wliich mayhap will he rcmemhered when most of the contests of the commercialized turf of today have ceased to possess interest for horsemen. "There is no tellinc when horse racing hereabouts begSJL, It may have been back in the days when the Hollanders were in possession and the town was still New Amsterdam, for while the early Dutch settlers as a etsjSS were not jiven to such frivolus amusements as horse racintr. and generally preferred sturdy, short lecKed. thick set horses built on lines like their own. there were pay blades on Broadway. even in those times, and we know that at a little later period — prior to 1711 — Kip Van Dam went to l o end of trouble and expense to import from Rhode Island one of the famous Narrapansett racers, that could pive the dusf to anything his n ■■iglibors owned. ISnt nothing definite has yet been discovered to show that horse racing was known in this vicinity until the Knplish ousted the Dutch in MM. "Colonel Richard Nicolls. who forced the surrender of Ieter Stuyvesant without firnp a shot, became the first povernor id New York under the English ride, and one of his early acts was to establish a race course on lonp Island, name it Newmarket, after the famous course of that name in England, and direct that a plate should be run for every year. This, the first course in the colony, was laid out on the Kreat Plains, later known as the Salisbury Plains and at present as the Hempstead Plains. It was doubtless only a course marked out on the level turf, and not an earth track as nearly all American courses are today. Location of Newmarket Course Unknown. "The exact location of the Newmarket course is no longer known, though there is some reason to believe it WM a little more than a mile to the southward of where Carden City now stands. For more than a century it was the favorite resort — first annually and then for spring and fall meetings — of the governors of New York and the gentry and farmers of the nrrwndtag country. What races were run. what horses won, who owned them, who bred them and what their ancestry was are interesting facts of colonial turf history which have never been discovered. All that can be learned is that races were first run there in MM, and that it was customary to hold mectinps at least once each year. The original Newmarket course was rebuilt not lonp after the Revolution and some say the new course was al out on" mile north of the old one. Tin- second Newmarket course was on the outskirts of iarden City, and traces of its sliphtly thrown up turns may still be seen. Frederick Dietz and other New York horsemen of today remember it writ. "Where were the first races run ou Manhattan IslandV Here is a conundrum for antii|uarians which they have not yet answered. The first race of which any record has been found was advertised 1o take place on Octolwr 1.1. 1731. oi the course at New York. This earliest announcement of a turf event in America appeared in Bradfords New York lazette- New Yorks first newspaner — on September 20. 173» . and was as follows: " On Wednesday, the thirteenth of October next, will lie run for on the course at New York. a. plate of twenty pounds value, by any horse, mare or gelding, carryinp ten stone, saddle and bridle included, the best of three heats, two miles each heat. Horses intended to run for the plate are to bo entered tlic day before the race, with Francis Child, on Fresh Water Hill, payinp a half pistole each, or at the post on the day of running, paying a pistole. And the next day. lMing the fourteenth. will be run for. on the same course, by all or any of the horses that started for the twenty pound plate the winning horse excepted, the entrance money, on the conditions above. Proper judges will be named to determine any disputes that may arise. All i ersons on horseback or in chairs, coming into the field .the subscribers and winning horse only excepted, are to pay six pence each to the owner of the grounds. The Old Church Farm Course. "Similarity in the advertised conditions make it plain that the race here referred to was the annual event afterward known as the New York Subscription Plate, which in 1747 and thereafter until 17ul was advertised to take place on the Church Farm Course. and which, in the year last mentioned was won by a h use railed Old Tenor, belonging to Lewis Morris, afterward distinguished as a delegate to the Continental Congress and as one of the stsTMtS of the Declaration of Independence. This probably was the first race run in America in which the name of the winner has been preserved. There is reason to believe that the New York Subscription Plate was the continuation of the annual race for a plate established by iovernor Nicolls at Newmarket in ltiti.". That the original Newmarket race was a snbscrip tion event is known from the fact that in ItiHV Governor Lovelace, who continued the policy of his pred cesser for the improving ami cui-ooraping of a good breed of horses. ordered the justices at Hempstead to receive subscriptions from all that are disused to run for a crown of silver or the value thereof in pood wheat. Bastes inn for the phlte at .Newmarket were at two mile heats, the s mir as for the New York Subscription Plate, and when, in 1752, the Church Farm Course seems to have sac out f existence. t.i scene of the contest was temporarily shifted back to the Newmarket Course, on HesaawteSii Plains. "John H. Wallace and .lolm Austin Stevens have assumed that the course at New York. where the race of 17M was run. was identical with tin- Church Farm course first mentioned in the advertisement of 1717. Hut this may well be doubted. Francis Child, who advertised the race of 17M, seems to have been the owner or apent of the prouuds. which were en -closed, so that an admission fee could be collected. New Courses Opened in New York. It is certain that Child never owned the Church Farm, which was in the possession of the king of England before it was given to the church. All the races run there were advertised by Adam Y.ui-derburg. who kept a tavern called the Drovers Inn on the property, and nowhere is there any indication that admission fees were charged, as they were oil Die course at New York. Francis Child lived in the vicinity of the present Pearl and Roosevelt str -t-. a. id it is not unlikely that a forgotten race • curse Mitedatinp the one on the Church Farm sru in existence in the ■ehjhhorbood of Fresh Water Hill and the Fresh Water Pond, near the site of the pee WCBt Tombs. It may have been the privaie half-mile training course of James De I.ancey. which was in th immediate vicinity. "Mcgiiiniug about 1TM and continuing until the Impending struggle between Kngland and the colonics .ailed a halt, in 1774. horse racing was in high faor among New Yorkers and new courses were laid out at ireenwich. Harlem and perhapa elsewhere on Manhattan Island. Prior to the Revolution there existed near Jamaica. I.. I., the Bearer Pond .nurse-, where trials of speed frequently t ok place, but whether at regular intervals is not known. After the Church Farm course had ceased to figure in the records of racing, probably by -Reason 1 prep;. r.i lions for the building of Columbia College .in the property, the race for the New York Subscription Plate took place at the Breea-■w ii !i course, which was "near the country seat of Sir Peter Warren at the junction of Charlc ■- and IMeeck i street, and waii oii«- of the celebrated i miiM- ol the day. In 17-V-f. a horse called Smu.i-ker. concerning whose ownership there was dispute between Major General Moiieleli. afterward governor oi the prwrfacc, and John l.Miy. a Cortland street stable keeper and a noted horseman of the period won the plate ovc_- tie- Greenwich course. Harlem Track Established in 1774. "At a mi-., e.rly date there was a race tuarec in Harlem. When and by whom it was established and ju t arhere it was we do not know, but as lonp Hf* ;is 1774 it was familiar as the Old course. where the- brother* of the bridle were invited to race their bursas for two parses oi MM each la April •! that jmmr. This was on the eve- of the Revolu tion. when nearly all apart eeasad in response to a resolution of the first Continental Congress, ph clg bag the ilc legates and their caastitnenta to Mis- ccmrige every species of extravagance and dissipation, especially all harm racing. and nothing more i- hard of the Harlem course until the jrear lHtMJ. In ISO*, a performance- took place on this track which will make it for ver famed in the history of the trotting borae. it was thaa ihraalihd in the Connecti. -lit Journal of June- 111. as having been copied frees the Sew York Spectator of an earlier cl.it. " i".i-t Trotting. Yesterday afternoon the liar lcni K Course OK ONE .MILKS DISTANCE wraa trotted iioiiid in TWO .MINI li;s and FIFTY -NINE SI.I ONllS try a horse calb-d Yankcy. from New Hareea, ■ rate of speed, it is believed, never before excelled iu this eoontry. "This is the first definite record of tritting on a cour-e. under the watch, tli.it ha- yet come to light. Isaac Woodruff, who waa horn steal 1812, and WlaMW father kept the Harlem Park trotting track la IttM. once t..i.i the writ, r that the ..hi Harlem race rmrrae «ra neat the Junction of Righto, areaae and lL..th afreet, and thai it waa -till in exiatonee when Woodruff was a Ix.y. The Harlem Park liol-tiuB truck was a half mile course at the western foot of Mount Morris, south of 18th street and ea-t of Seventh avenue. It was built at a very much later date than the old running track — probably nlxmt IMS— ami was still in operation in MM. First Organized Club in 1804. "It was not until 1S04 that a regularly organized racing dab came into existence in New York. In that year an association was formed to remodel the old Newmarket course, and meetings were held every May and October, with purses for races at two. three and four-mile heats. Finding it ditlicult to finance the enterprise and impossible to enforce regulations on an unenclosed course, the association in 1S09 abandoned the old Newmarket course and built a new one with a fence around it about one mile north of the former, giving it the same name. "In MM another association was formed to establish a race course at Hath, on Long Island, and races were held there one or two seasons, but the location proved to be unsatisfactory and in 1821 the same- association purchased a plot of ground eight miles from Hrooklyn. near the Jamaica turnpike, and there built the Fnion course, afterward the scene of the greatest turf contests, both running and trotting, in the country. "The race of races over the Union was the memorable sectional match of May. MM, in which the American Eclipse ran for the north and won from the southern champion. Sir Henry, at four-mile heats, for stakes of 0,000 a side. The contest was the outcome of a challenge by John C. Stevens, of Hoboken. at a jockey club dinner in Washington, in November. MB, offering to run Eclipse in the following May against any horse that could be produced at the post on the day of the race. The chall-nge was accepted by William R. Johnson, of Petersburg. Va.. the Napoleon of the turf. who MMCtad five of the best horses in the south to train for the contest and brought three of them to the course. Sixty thousand spectators were on the field when the race was run. and among them were distinguished men who had traveled by stage from all parts of the Inited States to witness the great match. Hookmaking and poolselling were unknown in those days, yet it was estimated that more than 00,000 changed hands on the result. Sir Henry, a four-year-old, carrying 10S pounds, won the first heat in 7:37.... John F. Purdy. an amateur rider, then got up on Eclipse, a nine-year-old horse, carrying 121! pounds, and pulled the race out of the fire for the northern spotsmen by winning the next two beats in 7:49 and 8:24. The contest was the talk of the whole country and is still regarded as the most famous race ever run in America."
