The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1909-03-19
RACETRACKS
OF LONG AGO
MAP OF GREATER NEW YORK
COVERS MANY FORGOTTEN
COURSES.
Interesting Facts Concerning Some of
the Spots Where Brilliant Races
Were Run and Won.

lots, hOrsemel are reminded that the
map of New York covers many forgot
ten courses where runners and trotters
in days long gone by fought out races
which still live in turf history and
which mayhap will be remembered
when most of the contests of the com
mercialized turf of to-day have ceased
to possess interest for horsemen, says
the New York World.
There is no telling when horse rae
ing hereabouts began. 1t may have
been back in the days when the HOl-
landers were in possession and the
town was still New Amsterdam, for
which the early Dutch settlers as a
class were not given to such frivolous
amusements as horse racing, and
generally preferred sturdy, short-leg
ged, thick-set horses built on lines
like their own, there were gay blades
on Broadway even in those times, and
we know that at little later period
prior to 1711-Rip Van Dam went to
no end of trouble and expense to i'm
port from Rhode Island one of the
then famous Narragansett PAGERS that
could give the dust to anything his
neighbors owned. But nothing de-
finite has yet been discovered to show
that horse racing was known in this
vicinity until the English ousted the
Dutch in 1864.
Col. Richard 1Nicolls, who forced the
surrender of Peter Stuyvesant with
out firing shot, became the first
Governor of New York under the Eng
lish rule, and one of his early acts was
to establish a racecourse on Long IS
land name it Newmarket, after the
famous course of that name in Eng !
land, and direct that plate should be
run for every year. This, the first |
course in the colony, was laid out on
the Great Plains, later known as the
Salisbury Plains and at present as the
Plains. 1t was doubtless
only course marked out on the level
turf, and not an earth track such as
nearly all American courses are to-
lay.
The exact location of the Newman
1et course is no longer known, though
here is some reason to believe it was
little more than mile to the south
ward from where Garden City now
tands. For more than century it
vas the fovorite resort-frst annual
y, then for spring and fall meetings
f the Governors of New York and the
entry and farmers of the surrounding 1
ountry. What races were rum what t
orses won, who owned them, who c
red them and what their ancestry )
,as are interesting facts of colonial p
Irf history which have never been t
All that can be learned o
that races were first run. there in
665, and that it was customary to
old meetings at least once each N
ear. The original Newmarket r.
purse was rebuilt not long after the +
evolution, and some say the new b
purse was about one mile north of II
lie old one. The second Newmarket 81
purse was on the outskirts of Garden b.
ity, and traces of its slightly thrown 81
} turns may. still be seen. Frederick h
ietz and other New York ~horsemen
to-day remember it well.
Where were the first races run on ia
anhattan Island? Here is a conun- K
UNI for antiquarians which they
I've not yet answered. The first
ce of which any record has been &c
und was advertised to take place on as
,tober 1916, ION the course near n
9w York" This earliest announce gr
ent of a turf event in America ap-
AIRED in Bradford's New York Gaz-
te New York's first newspaper da
September 20,1736, and was as fol oc
VS.: to
On Wednesday, the 18TH OF October oil
xt, will be run for, on the course VIZ
New York; plate Of twenty pounds er
lue, by any horse, mare or gelding, tn
rrying ten stone, saddle and bride st;
GUIDED, the best of three heats,
0 miles each heat Horses intend
TO run for the plate are to be en- ne
ed the day before the race, with su
ancis Child, on Fresh Water Hill,
wing half pistole each or at the
st on the day of running, paying a co,
tole. And the next day being the Co
h, will be run for, on the same me-
lrse, by all or only of the horses
It. started for the twenty-pound
tie (the winning horse excepted) die
entrance money, on the conditions
I'VE. Proper judges will be named S
determine any disputes that may hal
Sc All persons on horseback or