Aqueduct Racetrack, the horse racing mecca for the 'everyman,' closes for good Sunday

Hard to believe as it might now seem, Aqueduct once was the most modern racetrack not just in New York thoroughbred racing but of horse racing across America.

It was massive. And stunning. And it relaunched with a $34.5-million renovation that opened to a crowd of 42,473 on Sept. 14, 1959.

It was heralded by the New York Racing Association as "Racing's Wonder Track" — a mecca that, designed by Beverly Hills architects Arthur Froehlich and Associates, featured 18 escalators, an elevator, 20,000 outdoor seats in a four-tier grandstand that included another 14,000 seats in air-conditioned restaurants and lounges. There was closed-circuit television, so patrons could follow the races. There were 738 parimutuel windows, so they could bet on them.

"What Aqueduct lacks in charm and intimacy it more than makes up for with its huge vastness. It is an architectural wonder. In this colossal giant one can easily get lost and it is the perfect hiding place for bettors from ... bookmakers and mothers-in-law," Newsday said at the time.

On Sunday, they will race for the final time at Aqueduct, silencing a 132-year history that began in 1894 as an outlaw track on 100 acres of farmland in South Ozone Park, Queens; an exit that will no doubt end as it did for New York legends like the Polo Grounds and Ebbets Field: turned to apartment buildings.

The closure makes way for the Sept. 18 reopening of Belmont Park, a $455 million all-new facility on a vast 430-acre site in Elmont to be anchored by a 275,000-square foot five-level glass-enclosed grandstand designed by the Kansas City firm Populous, seating up to 9,000 fans with all the amenities. There will be four racecourses — two turf; an all-weather track; and, of course, the historic 1½-mile dirt oval — as well as a massive modern paddock and expansive parklike green space to provide access for up to 50,000 fans on the biggest racing days, like the 2027 Breeders' Cup and annual Belmont Stakes.

The site includes UBS Arena and Belmont Park Village shopping center.

Historians note it will all be a far cry from the blue collar roots of the track they called "The Big A."

"Times change, the business changes," retired legendary New York race-caller Tom Durkin said. "I don't go to the store anymore. I buy toilet paper on Amazon . . . It makes absolutely zero sense to have two racetracks — Aqueduct and Belmont — let alone two racetracks owned and operated by the same entity [NYRA] just eight miles from each other. This was bound to happen."

A track fit for Queens 

Albany lobbyist Thomas Reilly, Harlem-based Deputy Fire Chief Francis Reilly and Robert Tucker, a Brooklyn businessman who ran a hotel in Sheepshead Bay, ignored New York Jockey Club rules to open their 6-furlong (one furlong is 660 feet) racetrack on farmland once belonging to the Brooklyn Water Works with an unsanctioned six-race card on Sept. 27, 1894. The site was above the Ridgewood aqueduct that brought water from Hempstead Plains and so they named the track, with cabbages and potatoes growing in the infield and a shanty and boardwalk space for 2,000 fans, Aqueduct.

It lacked the prestige of two famed Bronx tracks of the era: Morris Park, which opened in 1889 and once hosted the Belmont Stakes and Preakness; and Jerome Park, founded in 1866 and home to the first Belmont Stakes. And it lacked the prestigious races run at nearby Gravesend.

But, through several incarnations — its main track at various times expanded to 1 1/4 miles, then shortened to one mile; later, measuring 1 1/8 miles — it outlasted them all, at one point becoming the focal point of American racing, eclipsing even Belmont Park, which opened in May 1905.

Brien Bouyea,  director of communications for the National Racing Museum and Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, noted Man o' War won a pair stakes at Aqueduct in 1919, then defeated John P. Grier to win the Dwyer in world-record time before a crowd of 25,000 in 1920.

Seabiscuit ran three times in a week at Aqueduct in September 1935, then won the 1937 Brooklyn Handicap at 1 1/8 miles there.

Future Hall of Fame trainer Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons ran Triple Crown winner Gallant Fox four times at Aqueduct. His other Triple Crown winner, Omaha, ran there five times. Each won just twice. Both were owned by William Woodward Sr., whose millionaire playboy son, William Jr., was shot to death by wife, Ann, in their Gold Coast Oyster Bay mansion on Oct. 30, 1955 — an event Life magazine dubbed "The Shooting of the Century."

And the 1944 Carter Handicap saw the only three-horse dead-heat win ever in a North American stakes race, Brownie, Bossuet and Wait a Bit all hitting the finish line in unison.

Royalty in the outer boroughs

Though in a working-class neighborhood and home to blue collar fans, through generations, Aqueduct was home to racing blue bloods.

Some of the greatest jockeys of all-time — Eddie Arcaro, Bill Shoemaker, Milo Valenzuela, Angel Cordero Jr., Jerry Bailey and more recently John Velasquez, Kendrick Carmouche, Irad Ortiz Jr. and his brother, Jose — all rode at Aqueduct. Sixteen-year-old apprentice Steve Cauthen made national news winning six races in a day at "The Big A" on Jan. 22, 1976, then made news when he won 23 in a week there in 1977. 

Barbara Jo Rubin became the first female jockey to win at Aqueduct in 1969, while a host of other female jockeys followed, among them: Robyn Smith, Mary Bacon, Julie Krone, Rosie Napravnik, and later Jackie and Katie Davis.

Trainers Maximilian Justice Hirsch, Todd Pletcher, Linda Rice, Hirsch Jacobs and Allen Jerkens, known as "The Giant Killer," ran horses at "The Big A."

So did Hall of Fame trainer Sylvester Veitch, whose nephew, Saratoga-based turf writing institution and Hall of Fame historian Michael Veitch, this week called the end of "The Big A" "near-tragic," adding: "I am weeping over the closing of Aqueduct." 

The immortal Kelso ran 16 of his 63 career races at Aqueduct, winning 14 times, including the Woodward, Brooklyn, Metropolitan and Suburban Handicap. His five wins in the Jockey Club Gold Cup there include a world-record 3:19.1 for two miles in 1964.

The 1967 Woodward Stakes, dubbed "The Race of the Century," a clash involving future Hall of Fame inductees Damascus, Buckpasser and Dr. Fager, ended with a stunning 10-length romp by Damascus. Cigar began his epic 16-race win streak at Aqueduct in 1994.

Iconic 1973 Triple Crown winner Secretariat ran five times at Aqueduct, finishing fourth at 5½ furlongs in his racing debut in 1972, breaking his maiden 11 days later with a romp at 6 furlongs. His retirement celebration was held at "The Big A."

"A Bronx Tale" and "The Sopranos" shot scenes at the track. Pope John Paul II held Mass before 75,000 at Aqueduct on Oct. 6, 1995. Even the Belmont Stakes was run at Aqueduct when Belmont Park was previously remodeled in the 1960s.

"Just look," Bouyea said, "at the horses that came through there, the trainers who trained there, the jockeys who rode there. The events that happened there. Aqueduct has a remarkable history. It's blue collar. There's not a lot of pomp and circumstance. But, it really is one-of-a-kind."

'Blue collar backbone'

Eclipse Award-winner and 2018 Suffolk Sports Hall of Fame inductee jockey Richard Migliore, known as "The Mig," was born in Sheepshead Bay and spent the days of his youth going to the races with his dad at Aqueduct.

"I remember telling my dad, getting back on the train going home one day, 'I'm going to be a jockey,'" Migliore said, recalling how he dropped out of school in the ninth grade after his family moved to Bay Shore to follow his dream.

Migliore notched 2,238 of his 4,450 career victories at Aqueduct, now and forever, the track record.

He won the Toboggan Handicap there six times, also winning the Gotham Stakes, the 2002 Carter Handicap and the 1985 Wood Memorial aboard Eternal Prince, a horse owned by George Steinbrenner.

More than any place he ever rode, Migliore loved "The Big A."

He said it not only had the best racing surface of the three major New York tracks, including Belmont and Saratoga. It also had the best fans.

"It was the blue collar backbone of New York racing," he said. "Aqueduct was the track for the everyman."

It was at "The Big A" where a fan who had made a killing playing his mounts invited Migliore and some grooms to dinner one Sunday, explaining he would be a little late because he had to work, then arriving wearing his clerical collar.

"Who knew the guy was a priest?" the Mig recalled.

Of the highlights in a career on the New York circuit, Migliore, a blue-collar everyman himself, has Aqueduct moments that rank right there with that Eclipse Award, the George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award, the Mike Venezia Memorial Award and the Eddie Arcaro Award.

Winning his first Toboggan Handicap and having his father and his father's friends take him out for a steak at a bar in Brooklyn to celebrate would be one. The day they hung his photo in L&B Spumoni Gardens would be another.

"To me, riding at Aqueduct was a badge of honor," he said. "I always thought if you made it in New York, you made it. Period."

As Migliore said, he turned down chances to ride winters in Florida or California, embracing winter meets at Aqueduct. "It was a hell of a lot harder riding when it was 20 degrees out, that wind coming in off Jamaica Bay. But, who said winter racing isn't supposed to be cold?"

'The mix of cultures that met there'

Former Newsday handicapper and turf writer Ed McNamara said the beauty of Aqueduct was seen in those moments often overlooked.

He recalled a card days before Christmas 1982, when it began snowing just before the final race.

"I had decided to stay to the end of the card," McNamara said in an email, "and I was glad that I did. I smiled as suddenly I was overcome with the feeling that, as a horseplayer, at the moment, this was the perfect place to be. Ah, the subtle charms of 'The Big A.'"

Aqueduct was a juxtaposition of all that hard core racing fans bemoaned but also held dear.

Its railbirds, who would launch criticisms only a New York fan could offer; its "stoopers," who would scour the grounds searching for uncashed winning tickets; its unlikely victors who would treat themselves to a meal at the famed Equestris restaurant. Its great horses and jockeys. Its ordinary ones.

"It was," Veitch, the historian, said, "the mix of cultures that met there. Whether they cheered, jeered; whether you were an angel or a bum. They knew racing. And I will always love that about the place. And, I have sadness that one day it will be an apartment complex. Or, something like that."

Preparing for vacation in London, where he plans to spend days at the Globe Theatre, Durkin, the legendary race-caller, read aloud a passage from Shakespeare as only a race-caller could before offering his final thoughts.

"At one point," Durkin said, "Aqueduct was the future. But, the future is always condemned to become the past and so it's time. It's just time. And, now ironically, Belmont is now again the future Aqueduct once was. And that's just how it goes."