This is the ninth of a major series of articles concerning racetracks in the USA. We continue our review of USA racetracks looking at the closed tracks of Maryland and the tracks of Missouri.
Maryland – Closed tracks
Baltimore
The Baltimore Raceway was a state of the art facility built at a cost of $1.5 million dollars, situated on a one hundred and fifty acre site on Pulaski Parkway and Martin Blvd, just northeast of downtown Baltimore. Prior to this, pari-mutuel harness racing had been conducted at Laurel from 1949 but the sport’s popularity demanded a track built closer to the big city.
The Raceway boasted a steel and concrete 5,000-seat grandstand, 270 feet long and 153 feet deep. The clubhouse was 180 feet long seating up to 600 on the second floor, the track had parking spaces for 4,500 cars and stabling containing stalls for 540 horses (ten barns) with an additional sixty four additional stalls in the paddock area.
Opening on 7 July 1950 the track had a 100 foot wide chute that ran parallel to the fifty four stall paddock barns. The chute was designed to permit shorter races being staged on a straightway making for better starts. An elaborate lighting system pumped 154,000 watts to sixty six poles giving the track great illumination. As Maryland’s latest trotting track, it hosted a twenty night meeting in 1950 starting on 14 July.
Track betting and attendances began declining such that in 1962 the raceway closed. Baltimore Trotting Races, Inc. was reorganized in 1965 into BTR Realty Inc with their first project being redevelopment of the raceway into the Pulaski Industrial Park which remains today.
Laurel/Freestate (FsR) Raceways
Laurel Raceway –
One and the same track, named differently for their respective periods of operation in Laurel, Maryland. Opening in 1949 as the half mile Laurel Raceway, the night time harness track in Laurel was located halfway between Baltimore and Washington DC, a few miles north of Laurel Race Course (thoroughbreds) on the other side of Route 1.
A September 1947 meeting determined that Rosecroft Raceway (Prince George County) and Laurel Raceway (Howard County) were chosen for respective Maryland harness racing licences. Laurel Raceway was founded by Dick Hutchinson. The owners hosted the Howard County Fair on the grounds in 1948 and 1949 deciding to increase stakes, seating etc to improve the racetrack for its inaugural 1949 season.
The first harness track in Maryland to allow pari mutual betting provided several records in its inaugural season, including opening night attendance on 21 June 1949 (12,000), total betting ($3,703,949) and highest attendance (16,000). The track size was increased to five eights of a mile with a 542 ft straight on 1 June 1965. Laurel Raceway hosted many stakes races notably the Reading Futurities for two and three year old pacers/trotters, colts and fillies.
Fortunes changed and popularity waned such that by the end of the 1975 season track operations at Laurel Raceway ceased. In March 1976 a fire destroyed the clubhouse and grandstand with track Vice President Mike Brown later indicted for arson. The racetrack was sold in April 1976 by Dick Hutchingson’s son, Dick Hutchingson Jr to Greta and Joseph Shamy (1976 – 1979 owners). During 1976 Laurel was transformed from a tartan track to an all-weather limestone track with racing taking place there during 1977, 1978 and 1979 seasons after which operations as Laurel Raceway ceased.
In 1979 with the track estimated to be $6 million in debt, Joseph Shamy was arrested for “raiding the track’s treasury” to pay personal debts. With the track defaulting on a $4.5 million loan from the National Bank of Washington and payments to horsemen, Shamy was convicted of racketeering and embezzling $1.2 million. The track was sold and revived as Freestate Raceway.
Freestate Raceway –
Frank J. DeFrancis purchased the bankrupt Laurel Raceway racetrack (owner 1980 – 1989) from National Bank of Washington in 1980. DeFrancis was a prominent Washington lawyer who became a Maryland government official and a giant in the state’s horse racing industry. After a year in state service DeFrancis resigned to become part owner of the thoroughbred track at Laurel in 1984 and later with his partner’s brothers Robert T and John A Manfuso Jr, acquired Pimlico Thoroughbred Race Course in Baltimore. At Laurel, Pimlico and Freestate which he subsequently sold, DeFrancis applied a formula of aggressive promotion and refurbishment which revised the racing industry in Maryland for which he was given most of the credit. DeFrancis died of heart failure in 1989, aged 62 years.
The first thing DeFrancis did was rename the Laurel track Freestate Raceway. He undertook extensive renovations to the grandstand, created a drivers lounge and promoted the “new” track under the banner “Where Fun Comes in First”. The opening meeting at Freestate held on 23 June 1980 saw Little Profit driven by Jim Scholzhauser win the first race. Losing money for the first few years, DeFrancis persuaded the Maryland General Assembly to lower the tax take on harness betting from six percent to three quarters of one percent.
Freestate featured a glass enclosed grandstand seating 2,000, including a 650 seat dining room and an open air grandstand that seated 5,000 with parking for 4,500 cars. The total track capacity was 15,000 people with accommodations for 650 horses in the stable area.
A signature race the Potomac Stakes for 2yo colts commenced in 1982 and although short lived, attendances and betting increased each time it was run. Driver Wayne Smulhn died on 12 August 1983 of injuries sustained in a fall the previous evening. In 1984, a record $1,094,054 was wagered on the night of the Potomac Stakes. Freestate’s average attendance in its first six years of operation increased from 4,477 to 5,453. After Roosevelt Raceway which hosted the Messenger Stakes closed in the late 1980’s, Freestate Raceway had the opportunity to host the Messenger in 1989, just prior to its own closure on 6 October 1989.
Following DeFrancis’s death in 1989, Freestate was bought by another Maryland harness track in Rosecroft Raceway, their only interest being the transfer of racing dates. Ironically, Rosecroft Raceway suffered a similar fate with live racing ending in 2009 and ceasing operations on 1 July 2010 before its revival in 2011. Arson was blamed for fires that destroyed the grandstand and clubhouse on 2 October 1990. Freestate Raceway became an industrial office park in 1990, specifically a 320,000 square foot shopping centre ** with a grocery store and an adjacent Carmax used vehicle dealership.
** Lincoln Centre, the shopping centre off Gorman Road and Freestate Drive where Weis Supermarket stands provides a reminder of the history of the site that once hosted harness racing tracks Laurel and Freestate Raceways.
Missouri –
Missouri State Fair
The Missouri State Fair has operated for one hundred and twenty years since 1901 in Sedalia, Missouri. Held over eleven days in 2021 it included daily concerts, exhibits and competitions of animals, homemade crafts, shows and many food/lemonade stands.
Harness racing commenced at Sedalia on a one mile track when the state fair started in 1901. Since modified to a half mile track, the original home straight and grandstand were incorporated into the revised layout. Careful to preserve tradition and other historic features on the fairgrounds, two barns dating back to the days when “the Roarin’ Grand” (Circuit) came to Sedalia were maintained.
A “News From the Great Midwest” article by L. Densmore of Marshalltown, Iowa, which appeared in the Horseman and Fair World in January of 1948 stated that the Tri state Circuit comprising the state fairs of Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri and the Clay County Fair at Spencer, Iowa was “the most outstanding and progressive (circuit) throughout the Midwest” through the mid-1900s.
The Missouri State Fair in 2006 hosted two days of harness racing in mid-August where sixty two horses made eighty eight starts over the two day programme with total stakes of $23,000 paid out. Harness Racing has ceased at the state fair.
The only Missouri county fair holding harness racing in 2021 was Clark County Fair, Kahoka on 15 July. The twilight meeting was part of an ongoing tradition at the Clark County Fair.
Closed –
Saint Louis Fairgrounds
Opened later in life as the Fairground Park in 1908, this municipal park was originally a privately owned facility used first by the St. Louis Agricultural and Mechanical Association for the St Louis Exposition (Fair) from 1856 to 1902. During the American Civil War 1861 – 1865 the Fairgrounds were used as a Union encampment known as Benton Barracks. The Fairgrounds boasted a small rudimentary zoo, the last remnants of it exist in the old bear pits now used as maintenance facilities at the southeast corner of the park.
The half mile track opened in 1852 and was upgraded to a one mile circuit in 1885. When the Association fell on hard times it was replaced by the St. Louis Fair and Jockey Club as owner in the early 1880’s. Thousands of spectators jammed into the arena to watch the horse races including Louis Lemps prize winning horses at St Louis. In 1879 Mattie Hunter set a Pacing mares mile record of 2:14.0 at St Louis Fairgrounds, the third of three times in 1879 she held the record which she improved on again in 1881.
The principal owners of Delmar Race track (thoroughbreds), Cap. Tilles, Sam W. Alder and Louis A. Cella had been purchasing race tracks across the St. Louis area since 1892 and in 1901 they purchased the St. Louis Fairgrounds. Delmar became the main competitor to the St. Louis Fair and Jockey Club at the Fairgrounds with Delmar ultimately winning out.
The Fairgrounds revival suffered a further blow in June 1905 with the abolition of gambling on horse racing in Missouri. This followed the election of Governor Joseph W. Folk in 1904, having run an anti-gambling reform ticket. When Folk signed the Anti-Breeders Act, it directly led to the permanent closure of the St. Louis Fairground Track. Already the annual exposition had ceased in 1902 in preparation for the 1904 World’s Fair in St Louis. The track was turned over to automobile racing in 1905.
Following protracted political debate, the abandoned 132 acre (0.53 km2) fairground was purchased for park use by the City of St. Louis for $700,000 in 1908. At the crowded dedication ceremony on 9 October 1909, the park was officially opened to the public. All former fair structures and zoo buildings were removed except the bear pits of the old zoo and the track amphitheatre. The amphitheatre was removed in 1912 replaced by the city’s first municipal swimming pool then said to be the world’s largest rumoured to hold as many as 12,000 patrons.
Today the St Louis Fairgrounds/Fairground Park provide numerous sporting and recreation facilities, lake and the historic Bear Pits building.
Next Article : Minnesota and Virginia
Peter Craig
21 September 2022
Approved By Dean Baring www.harnessbred.com
Driving The Future Of Harness Racing
