Sheepshead Bay Race Track

Early history

The racetrack was built by a group of prominent businessmen from the New York City area who formed the Coney Island Jockey Club in 1879. Led by Leonard Jerome and the track's President, William Kissam Vanderbilt, the Club held seasonal race cards at nearby Prospect Park fairgrounds until construction of the new race course was completed in 1880.

Old maps and railroad track diagrams for the Manhattan Beach Branch of the Long Island Rail Road showing the spur that served both the club and the racetrack indicates the entrance to the club was located on the east side of Ocean Avenue between Avenues X and Y.

In its first year of operations, the new Sheepshead Bay track hosted a 1½ mile match race between two of the top horses racing at the time in the United States. The Dwyer Brothers' Luke Blackburn was ridden by Jim McLaughlin, and Pierre Lorillard's Uncas was ridden by jockey Costello. Luke Blackburn won by twenty lengths.

Sheepshead Bay had both a dirt and a turf course.

Principal backers were:

The new Sheepshead Bay Race Track's premier event was the Suburban Handicap, first run on June 10, 1884 and conceived by James G. K. Lawrence, who became the track's president. Four years later Lawrence would also create the Futurity Stakes, first run on Labor Day in 1888. At the time, the Futurity was the richest race ever run in the United States. Today, both the Suburban and the Futurity are ongoing Graded stakes races held at the Belmont Park racetrack in Elmont on Long Island. The Lawrence Realization Stakes was named for James G. K. Lawrence.

First turf course in the United States

On June 10, 1886 the Coney Island Jockey Club opened the first turf racecourse in the United States. The Club replaced the Sheepshead Bay steeplechase course with a one-mile turf course, built inside the existing main dirt track. The Green Grass Stakes was the first race on turf and was run as part of the June 10 opening day program. A race for three-year-old horses, it was contested at a distance of a mile and an eighth and was won by Emory & Cotton's Dry Monopole in a time of 157.00.

Demise of horse racing

In 1908, the administration of Governor Charles Evans Hughes signed into law the Hart-Agnew bill that effectively banned all racetrack betting in New York State. A 1910 amendment to the legislation added further restrictions that meant by 1911 all racetracks in the state ceased operations. Although the ban was lifted for the 1913 racing season, by then it was too late for the Sheepshead Bay Race Track, which was sold to the Sheepshead Bay Speedway Corporation.

Sheepshead Bay Speedway Corporation

The new owner converted the horse track to a board automobile race track. Several auto races were held from October 1915, through September 1919, including the Astor Cup Race and the Harkness Trophy Race. The Sheepshead Bay Speedway Corporation ran into financial difficulties following the death of its majority shareholder Harry Harkness in January 1919. The property was sold in 1923 for residential real estate development. No trace of the racetrack can be found today.

In 1959, the Sheepshead Bay Handicap was named in honor of the old racetrack, and first run at the now-defunct Jamaica Racetrack in Jamaica, New York. It, too, is currently held at Belmont Park.

Other defunct New York race tracks