This is the fifteenth of a major series of articles concerning racetracks in the USA. We continue our review of USA racetracks with a look at several of the closed tracks of Michigan.
Closed –
Michigan State Fairgrounds
The one mile Michigan State Fairgrounds in Detroit operated as a Grand Circuit track from 1910 until the 1930’s. On 28 June 1933 pair mutual betting was authorised in the state of Michigan and on 2 September the old Detroit (Michigan) Fairgrounds Track featured the first race in the state using pari mutual betting. The Detroit Fairgrounds was the only track in Michigan that held extended race meetings during the nineteen thirties.
The Merchant and Manufacturers Open trot was held at the fairgrounds from 1910 to 1929 (later at Detroit race Course/Wolverine Raceway). The Michigan State Fairgrounds track closed in 1949 following the running of the first Michigan Mile (major thoroughbred event) and was replaced by the Detroit Race Course/Wolverine Raceway in 1950.
The new Detroit Race Course (DRC) opened on 25 May 1950 and was located in Livonia, sixteen miles from downtown Detroit. Not surprisingly, it was surrounded by automobile assembly plants. Opening a year after it replaced the old Michigan State Fairgrounds track and retaining its daily race form abbreviation of DET. The Detroit Race Course became the first Michigan track to host both thoroughbred and harness meetings with the later referred to as Wolverine Raceway. Opening on 17 July 1950 the harness track included an inner half mile oval (660 ft straight) for harness racing before that track was expanded to five eights of a mile until it was eliminated with both codes sharing the mile oval (990 ft straight) with six furlong and 1¼m chutes for thoroughbreds.
Lacking facilities to begin with the track was modernized to a glass enclosed clubhouse (seating 9,000, including Good Time Terrace Dining Room seating 850) and grandstand with a capacity to accommodate 12,500. The overall DRC facility was said to have an overall capacity for 30,000 fans but this number was never achieved. Its parking capacity was 10,000 vehicles with a stabling area which could accommodate 1,600 horses.
From 1970 Wolverine Raceway’s 60 night meeting was held on the Detroit Race Course’s Michigan Mile track with the trotters and pacers joining the gallopers in utilising the one mile strip. Sunday racing commenced in 1974 with competition for the betting dollar appearing in the form of s State Lottery in 1972 meaning a division of the gambling dollar ultimately impacted the Wolverine Raceway’s fortunes. On 22 April 1975 thirty five horses perished in a barn fire.
Harness racing at Wolverine Raceway was once part of the Grand Circuit featuring annual events such as the Motor City Pace, Matron series, Merchant and Manufacturers Trot and Geers Stakes. In 1980 Wolverine Raceway was listed as number fourteen in the USA for stakes distribution.
Harness racing ceased at Wolverine Raceway at the end of 1984 and the track was sold to British Bookmaker Ladbrokes in 1985, primarily to secure Off Track Betting sites in the state. After eliminating harness racing it hosted the first simulcast race in Michigan, the Kentucky Derby, at DRC in 1987. Track betting records were set on 4 May 1991 when $2,339,360 was placed through the on course pari mutual windows (thoroughbreds).
In January 1996 Ladbrokes and DRC were the first to utilise full card simulcasting when legalized in Michigan. This however did not delay the tracks closure (sold for scrap) after its final thoroughbred meeting held on 8 August 1998. Ion 22 May 2001 the grandstand was demolished to make way for an industrial park. By the early 2010’s nothing remained of the Detroit Race Course, not even a sign marking its existence, just a series of warehouses.
East Saginaw/Union Park
The Saginaw Valley Agricultural Society built their own horse track in the South East part of Saginaw in 1872. Named the East Saginaw Driving Park it was built by famous Saginaw business men Eddy, Morley and Wickes and located between, Jefferson, Webber and Sheridan roads. It was one of the finest tracks in the country with crowds of 10,000 witnessing some fine racing.
The most famous race was held on 16 July 1874 when Goldsmith Maid defeated Judge Fullerton in a world record trotters mile time of T2:16.0 (earlier ran T2:16½ on same day) as shown in the Currier and Ives lithograph commemorating the event above.
In 1888 Isaac Bearinger who owned a trolley company that was eventually sold to the Saginaw Valley Traction Company built the mile oval track at East Saginaw’s Union Park, the first meeting taking place on 17 July that year. The park entrance was on State and Bond, bordered by Wiess at the north and the railroad tracks west of Durand. Grand Circuit racing took place from its opening until 1909. The park land was subdivided and sold as lots for building residential homes on when the track closed that year.
Saginaw Valley Downs (SGV)
In June 1980 the half mile (600 ft straight) Saginaw Valley Downs Raceway became the first harness track to open in Michigan in thirty years. Located at the old Saginaw Fairgrounds, about one hundred miles north of Detroit in mid-Michigan. Saginaw Valley was a minor circuit track that raced from mid-spring through mid-summer months.
Opening before a record crowd of 6,000 on 16 June 1980, it was another five years before the track betting record of $471,945 was set on the course. The track had a modest open air grandstand that sat 2,500 with a small clubhouse seating 250 including the dining room. The car park accommodated 5,000 vehicles.
In 1989 most of the stakes were around $1,000 with top level open races being $4,000 and Michigan Sire Stakes races were a feature during the nineteen eighties and nineties. The track lost money for many years and with racino wagering unlikely to be legalised in Michigan, the track closed at the end of the 2005 season, with the last meeting held on 1 November. Essentially all fairground buildings including the grandstand have been demolished.
Grosse Pointe
The one mile Grosse Pointe track located on the outskirts of Detroit city was opened on 17 July 1893. This course succeeded that of Hamtramck in Detroit and was followed in turn by the Michigan State Fair Track. The course was built by DJ Campion with the entrance located at Algonquin and Jefferson designed by noted Detroit architect Mortimer Smith.
The track could be accessed by steamboat up the river or by street car from Detroit to the track entrance. Grosse Pointe was a member of the Grand Circuit from 1893 to 1910. It had a 5,000 seat covered grandstand, a tri-level Victorian clubhouse, seventeen barns, an electrical power house and a grooms quarters. Grosse Pointe track as well as Grand Circuit racing also featured the Merchants and Manufacturers Open trot between 1894 and 1909.
On 10 October 1901 the most historical event took place at the track with Henry Ford and Alexander Winton (another auto pioneer) racing their automobiles against each other to determine who had designed the more powerful car. Ford won in a car he designed that would later become the Cadillac. Ford’s victory came on a track that was a forerunner to the site of a long time Dodge plant which was built just a few blocks away at E. Jefferson and Connors. The track closed in 1909 when the land was subdivided for a housing development.
Grosse Pointe Farms had a couple of tracks in the 1800s beside Grosse Pointe Park. One a thoroughbred track named the Detroit Jockey Club was a few blocks east and the other was a lesser known trotting park farther east named Hamilton Park.
Comstock Park
Opening as the West Michigan State Fairgrounds on West River Drive just south of downtown Grand Rapids, Comstock Park’s oval track in addition featured automobile racing. Car racing on the half mile asphalt track first took place in 1903 with races hosted off and on until the complex was purchased by the state.
Martha Wilkes established the trotters race mile record of T2:12.0 on 13 August 1892 at Comstock Park (first of five lowering the record all in 1892 – T2:08.0 at Independence on 1 September 1892 her best). The one mile track in Grand Rapids featured Grand Circuit racing from 1911 to 1915. Uhlan was fastest trotter of 1913, T1:59¾TT on 28 July and later Winnipeg was the fastest pacer of 1929 with his 1:58¼TT on 25 July, both at Comstock Park. The track was closed in 1937 with Richard DeVos converting it into an airfield in 1948.
Hamtramck
Probably the first major track in Detroit opening in April 1843 initially as a half mile track with racing conducted as part of a fair. Located opposite Belle Isle near where are now Jefferson and Van Dyke. By 1853 the area’s racing owners organization, the “Michigan Association for the Improvement of the Breed of Horses,” held a spring meeting on 7/8 June of pacers and trotters at the Hamtramck course.
In 1860 the course was remodelled as the new Detroit Club Course and upgraded to a one mile track. Described as “continental, commodious and ornamental” becoming one of the fastest and best tracks in the country. Hamtramck’s membership of the Grand Circuit (races 1886 – 1893) retained the public interest.
In 1889 The Merchants and Manufacturers Trot Classic was introduced, Detroit’s harness racing trotting classic then moved to Grosse Pointe until 1909, Michigan Fairgrounds 1910 – 1929; then revised by Wolverine Raceway, Detroit 1952 – 1971 before the race was then discontinued from 1972. Palo Alto set a trotter’s race mile record of T2:13½ on 2 August 1890. Racing continued through the 1890’s until the track’s closure in 1893.
Hazel Park Raceway (HP)
Hazel Park was the first five eights mile track in North America located twelve miles north of Detroit at 1650 East Ten Mile Road, Hazel Park, the first 5/8ths mile track in North America. Boasting a glass enclosed grandstand seating 9,200 and a clubhouse seating 3,000 inclusive of a dining room. Stabling was available for 1,200 horses and car parking provided for 8,000 cars. Opening for thoroughbreds in 1949, adding in harness racing from 1953, switching exclusively to harness racing in 1985 before reverting back to thoroughbred racing in mid-2014 with harness racing having ceased earlier that year. The track was closed for good in 2018 with demolition taking place the following year.
History of Hazel Park Raceway
In the late 1940s a group of auto racing enthusiasts purchased 140 acres of the former garbage dump/landfill property on the southwest corner of 10 Mile Road and Dequindre Road to build an auto racing track in Hazel Park. Construction of the five eighths mile track was halted due to financial problems with the project.
Samuel “Dayton” Matkin, a racing car driver proposed the track could be converted to horse racing. As one of the founders of the track, Matkin served at various times as a Racing Official, Timer and Barn Superintendent. The property was purchased from the defunct automobile racing enterprise by a successful area businessman with a love of horse racing. With a racetrack already in place, the Hazel Park Raceway converted the facility to a horse racing venue constructing stables and related facilities in the early summer of 1949. Hazel Park Raceway opened for business on Wednesday 17 August 1949 holding its first thoroughbred meeting. It was the second thoroughbred race track in both the Detroit area and in Michigan consisting of 615 ft straight, 80 ft width, starting nine across mobile gate; chutes at six and half furlongs and one and one eighth mile marks for thoroughbreds.
In the nineteen fifties Hazel Park became a dual code track with harness racing introduced from 3 May 1953. Hazel Park formed a circuit with Livonia based Detroit Race Course with one track running thoroughbreds during the day and the other standardbreds at night.
The largest thoroughbred crowd on record attended on 31 May 1965, 28,726 fans whilst 12 July 1975 had 15,372 harness racing fans bet $1,425,478, both records for standardbreds at Hazel Park. The largest amount wagered on a thoroughbred day at Hazel Park was on 10 July 1977 with $2,029,028 bet on the card.
The dual code facility was maintained through 1984 when thoroughbreds ceased on 7 July 1984 (thoroughbreds remained at Detroit Race Course until track closure in 1998) and the track became exclusively standardbreds from 1985.
On 15 June 1987 a fire at Hazel Park Harness Raceway resulted in fifteen of twenty six horses perishing in a barn fire. The average value of each standardbred lost was approximately $15,000. The fire started while racing was in progress in a barn located about five hundred yards from the grandstand. The fire was contained after thirty minutes with the origin being unknown.
A harness racing record pay-out of $1,234,053 for two dollars, on the “twin super” was made on 17 September 1988. Annual firework displays featured in honour of Independence and Labour Days, usually following the last race of the evening.
The Michigan State Legislature passed a law authorising three casinos in Detroit together with expanded betting opportunities at tracks allowing betting on simulcast events in 1996. Hazel Park could now offer year round, seven days a week simulcast betting on thoroughbred and harness races from across the USA and Canada from lounges located on the second, third and fourth floors of the clubhouse.
The real prize from the newly passed legislation was casino gaming. At the beginning of the twenty first century racinos were popping up everywhere with Hazel Park sure it would be one of them. Hazel Park went all out to develop a gaming facility starting major renovations in anticipation of getting a racino licence. While many casinos appeared in Detroit, racinos were at the last minute not approved leaving Hazel Park without the expected revenue stream they would have provided.
The 2004 redevelopment included replacement of its old grandstands with a new 40,000-square foot, multi-million-dollar structure that included modern grandstands, a press box, and a gaming facility. The gaming facility plans which included slot machines were placed on hold indefinitely pending needed legislation.
The grandstands housed Action On The Apron with an outdoor bar and live band providing patrons with excellent views of the horses and racing. After the clubhouse renovations patrons could view the track from the dining room located in the Clubhouse on the first turn. As well as the dining room and concession stands throughout, the Top of The Park Grill located on the fourth floor of the Clubhouse was a further addition with food available from all these locations during live racing (May – September). On simulcast days, food and beverages were available at the concession stand on the third floor and the Top of The Park Grill.
Hazel Park was a good income generator for the City as illustrated by the approximately $550,000 revenue in 2009 when the raceway was under the ownership of Bernard Hartman and Herbert Tyner, owners of Hartman and Tyner Inc. – part of the Lessors of Real Estate Industry. Hartman and Tyner Inc. has 1,000 total employees across all of its locations and generates $53.08 million in sales (USD). There are 26 companies in the Hartman and Tyner Inc. corporate family
After thirty years exclusively of harness racing and sixty two years overall, the final harness meeting at Hazel Park was held on Saturday 3 May 2014, coincidentally Kentucky Derby Day. An estimated crowd of 9,000 attended for the last time to witness the pacers and trotters although most possibly came to place their simulcast bets on the 140th “Run for the Roses” (Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs). The track’s doors opened at 9.30am with seventy people waiting to get in.
North America’s most winning driver in season 2013 was Ronnie Wrenn Jr. with 714 victories, driving six of the twelve winners on the final nights programme after having earlier won eight from eleven on the Friday evening.
Hazel Park hosted several major stakes events in later years, including the following : Geers Stakes (from 1968; renamed Tompkin Geers from 1986 and relocated to other tracks thereafter), Matron Stales 1985 only; Michigan Sires Stakes (various : 1981 – 2014), Motor City Pace (1981 – 2004), Rose Are Red Pace (1996 – 2004), Wm. C. Connors Memorial Trot (1997 – 2013) and Nicole Hudock Memorial Pace (1989 – 2001; Cambest, Artsplace, Dragon Again among winners).
Following the demise of harness racing at Hazel Park, in an effort to increase dwindling revenue thoroughbred racing returned to Hazel Park on Friday 27 June 2014 endeavouring to attract a younger crowd. Hazel Park invested “approximately $250,000 in a new racing surface;” the soft, sandy loam had a limestone base, considered “ideal for thoroughbred horses.” The move to thoroughbred racing did not ultimately save the track with its actual final race being run on 18 September 2017. An opening day for 2018 was planned for 5 April with horseman having shipped in from other states, instead in an unprecedented move Hazel Park closed its doors
With its year-round simulcast schedule, the racetrack had profitable operations. The track was sold to Ashley Capital in 2018 and demolition of the track began on 1 September 2018. By the end of the year Hazel Park was levelled with the new owners intending to develop the 140-acre property for multiple tenants including LG, Amazon, Bridgwater, Akasol, Dakkota, Hi-Lex, Enova Premier. Amazon Warehouses distribution centre occupy the tracks having displayed Wal-Mart as the tenant of choice.
Next ArtIcle : Michigan closed tracks continued
Peter Craig
16 November 2022
Approved By Dean Baring www.harnessbred.com
Driving The Future Of Harness Racing
