Saratoga’s Premier Jump Race

When Belmont Park was opened on Long Island in 1905, it was comprised of 400 acres north of the Hempstead Turnpike and 160 acres on the south side. The track designers built a passenger rail terminal on the southern acreage, where they also staged jump racing. The United Hunts Racing Association held steeplechase events there, and the proximity of the rail connection gave rise to the name Belmont Park Terminal Course. 

John McEntee Bowman became the President of United Hunts Racing Association in 1922. Mr. Bowman was one of the best rags-to-riches stories in turf history, from immigrant stable groom to multi-millionaire owner and track operator, while developing a successful national business brand, the Biltmore Hotel chain. He truly was the personification of the “American Dream.”

Following the death of August Belmont, the succeeding track management re-evaluated priorities and decided to convert all the land surrounding the rail terminal into a housing development. United Hunts conducted their last meet over the Belmont Park Terminal Course in the spring of 1927.

Mr. Bowman was building a luxury resort north of Manhattan in Rye, New York, a few years before the cessation of the Terminal track. This novel facility encompassed several hundred acres, and the construction taking place was setting a new standard for accommodation and resident services.

John Bowman decided this location, in Westchester County, would provide a solution for United Hunts losing their competition site in Metropolitan New York.

In early October 1927, Bowman Park, the new steeplechase course of the Westchester Biltmore Steeplechase Association, became operational. It was a complete racing plant on a tract of 125 acres, designed as a new home for sport where visitors would find every convenience and comfort.

The second season in 1928 at Bowman Park was more exciting than the first, with Amelia Earhart shooting touch-and-go’s on the polo grounds in her Avro Avian, while she resided at the Putnam residence in Rye, completing her first book (20 Hrs., 40 Min. Our Flight in the Friendship).

The inaugural running of the New York Turf Writers’ Steeplechase was added to the 1928 season stakes schedule. The conditions were four-year-olds and up, gentleman riders, for 3.5 miles over post and rail.

The scribes who labored under familiar mastheads, most of which are long gone, made a few failed attempts to organize themselves into an association in the early 1900’s. They shared a unique bond in their task, providing accurate correspondence from the press boxes of the racing world, under the pressure of a daily deadline. The New York Turf Writers Association was formed as a guild in 1923.

The first winner of the New York Turf Writers’ Steeplechase was Gold Trap, a gelding owned by Walter O. Briggs and ridden by Mr. Alexis G. “Lex” Wilson, a highly regarded amateur jump-jockey of the day.

The same owner/rider combination prevailed again in the 1929 Turf Writers’ Steeplechase with a horse named Lieutenant Seas finding his usual place out front, navigating over a sloppy course in downpouring rain. Incidentally, Mr. Briggs was the principal owner of the Detroit Tigers baseball franchise for many years.

Dry but gusty conditions predominated at Bowman Park for the 1930 New York Turf Writers’ Cup, and a nine-year-old veteran fencer named Barleycorn, in the colors of Mrs. Thomas W. Durant and ridden by Mr. Charles R. White, succeeded by nine lengths in the feature race of the day. It is nearly certain that Barleycorn would have been a “hunch-bet” for many, attending a race at Rye.

The jump racing events at Bowman Park were sanctioned by the National Steeplechase and Hunt Association, presently known as the NSA, making these contests regulated and recognized by the official authority for U.S. steeplechase horse racing.

The Westchester venue enjoyed a few years of success, developing a fine reputation for Bowman Park. Some prolonged poor autumn weather and Mr. Bowman’s health became negative issues for the track, and their fifth season was unfortunately cancelled. In late October 1931, John McEntee Bowman died following complications from gallbladder surgery.

The property that comprised Bowman Park continued for many years as the still viable Blind Brook Country Club, although the track portion of the operation was converted into the PepsiCo global headquarters campus in 1967.

These unfortunate circumstances in the early 1930s put the New York Turf Writers’ Cup event into an extended hiatus, and the United Hunts Racing Association without a dedicated venue.

The New York Turf Writers revived sponsorship of their Cup Stake in 1938 at Belmont Park, under differing conditions of two miles over hurdles, a dramatic shift from four-year-olds and up, gentleman riders, for 3.5 miles over post and rail.

Wesley Faulkenberry, Curator of The National Steeplechase Museum in Camden, South Carolina conjectures that the change in race conditions could be the reason the 1928, 1929 and 1930 occurrences at Bowman Park are not included in modern accounts of the history of the present Grade 1 race, contested for many years at Saratoga Race Course as the New York Turf Writers’ Cup, and presently known as the Jonathan Sheppard Stakes.