The Evan Shipman Handicap (NYB) is a race restricted to New York bred Thoroughbred horses, age three-years-old and up, run at Belmont Park in the state of New York. (In 2014 & 2015, it was run at Saratoga Race Course.)
Until 2013, it was set at a distance of one and one/sixteenth miles on the dirt, the ungraded stakes event offers a purse of $100,000 added.
The race, which was run for the 36th time in 2015, is named for Evan Shipman, long a racing columnist for the New York Morning Telegraph and one of the world’s authorities on Thoroughbred and harness racing and breeding. Shipman died in 1957, and is buried in the Gilkey Cemetery beside the family estate in Plainfield, New Hampshire. He was a friend of Ernest Hemingway and a chapter is devoted to him in "A Moveable Feast, Bantam Books, 1964."
The Evan Shipman was run at one mile in the years 1981 and 1982. It was run at 1 1/8th miles in 2014 & 2015.
Due to the troubled economy in 2008, the Evan Shipman was canceled by the NYRA as they adjusted races to meet the new Grade I standard purse of $300,000.
The race began again in 2010 with a purse of $75,000 at the distance of 9 furlongs. By 2013 the purse was again up to $100,000.