Sheepshead Bay Race Track, Brooklyn, N.Y. Postcard
$95
3 3/8" x 5 1/2"
Sheepshead Bay Race Track was an American Thoroughbred horse racing facility built on the site of the Coney Island Jockey Club at Sheepshead Bay, New York.
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, James R. Keene, 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. On June 19, 1880 the track hosted its first day of Thoroughbred racing.
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. The Sheepshead Bay Race Track station contained six tracks and three island platforms.
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 Tom Costello. Luke Blackburn won by twenty lengths.
Sheepshead Bay had both a dirt and a turf course.
Principal backers were:
August Belmont Jr.
Leonard Jerome
James G. K. Lawrence
Pierre Lorillard IV
A. Wright Sanford
William R. Travers
William Kissam Vanderbilt
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.