Rare Books

"Meadow Brook Club M.B.H. Year Book" 1940

[45] pp.

Privately Printed

1940

7" x 5 1/8"

The club originated as the Meadow Brook Hunt Club, established in 1881 in Westbury, New York and home of the Meadow Brook Hounds. The hunt club had its headquarters in Westbury, but convened in different rural parts of Nassau County where the hounds and horses could run free. Future President Theodore Roosevelt was a member of the hunt club, which met at his home in Oyster Bay in 1886. The members sometimes hunted foxes, but often drag hunted, where the hounds followed a trail of anise scent.

The Hunt Club gave birth to the Meadowbrook Polo Club, whose founders included the polo player and millionaire Thomas Hitchcock, Sr. (1862-1941). Hitchcock was one of the founders of the Meadow Brook steeplechase races in 1883, and in 1889 became master of the Meadow Brook Hunt. The club in Westbury had eight polo fields, and was the leading polo center in the United States. During the first half of the 20th century the polo club was often the site for national or international polo championships.


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