Centreville Course

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Centreville Course
Location Ozone Park, Queens, New York City, New York, U.S.
Owned byNew York Trotting Club
Date opened1825
Course type Harness racing

Centreville Course, formerly known as the Eclipse Course, was a harness racing track in what is now Ozone Park, Queens, New York City. It was one of the earliest trotting tracks in America.

Contents

History

The State of New York's 1802 ban on horse racing and trotting was eased in 1821 when the law was amended to suspend penalties for five years and allow "the training, pacing, trotting, and running of horses" on approved tracks in Queens County, Long Island. [1] The New York Trotting Club (NYTC), established in 1825, sought to improve the speed of road horses, just as racing and jockey clubs had done for riding horses. [2] It was the earliest body to set rules for the sport, racing along today's Third Avenue from Bull's Head Tavern to Harlem. [3]

In 1825, a course was laid out in Queens by the newly formed New York Trotting Club. [4] Originally situated in Woodville (now Woodhaven, Queens), at the intersection of present-day Woodhaven Boulevard and Rockaway Boulevard, the section of land later took the name Ozone Park. The course extended east from the grounds now occupied by John Adams High School to Centreville Street. [5] [6]

First known as the Eclipse Course, the name honored the famous 1823 North versus South contest between American Eclipse and Sir Henry. [5] [7] It was among America's first tracks dedicated solely to racing road horses. [3] The course, near Jamaica, Queens, was about a mile from the Union Course. [2] A surveyor's certificate confirmed the course extended ten feet over a mile when measured at a distance of three feet from the poles. [8]

Following the opening of the course, other tracks quickly followed. [4] From 1830 to 1850, the Centreville Course rivaled the Union Course in the significance of its trotting races. [9] During this time, Joel Conklin was the proprietor of the Centreville Course. [10] Modern racetracks split between thoroughbreds and harness racing, but the Centreville Course hosted both. [11]

On April 25, 1854, The New York Times reported that the track, newly opened for the spring racing season, was praised for its stone- and gravel-free soil, ranking among the North and South's best. That season offered no purses, but the proprietor pledged two-thirds of course receipts to winning horses to encourage trotting matchups. [12]

The Centreville Course was purchased in June 1858 by a newly chartered club formed by influential local residents. The club aimed to elevate the track's standards with major upgrades and strict turf rules to rival Europe's top racing grounds. [13]

Record-breaking performances at the course were set by the following trotting horses: Edwin Forrest rode 2:31½ under saddle in 1834; Pelham trotted 2:28 harnessed in 1849; Highland Maid lowered the harness record to 2:27 in 1853; Lancet clocked 2:25½ under saddle in 1856; and Flora Temple set records of 2:23½ and 2:22 in 1857 and 1859, respectively. [14]

Closure

The course lacked nearby lodging and entertainment like Union Course Tavern at the Union Course, which hurt its popularity. [15]

The Centreville Course land was sold in 1899 to the Ozone Park Land Improvement Company, which subdivided it for homes. [5] The area once home to the Centreville Course is now Ozone Park and the Aqueduct Racetrack. [15]

References

  1. ↑ New Hampshire. General Court (1892). Report . Retrieved August 8, 2025– via Google Books.
  2. 1 2 New Hampshire. Department of Agriculture (1883). Report . Retrieved August 8, 2025– via Google Books.
  3. 1 2 Van Nostrand (1951). Harness Horse Racing in the United States and Canada . Retrieved August 8, 2025– via Google Books.
  4. 1 2 The Carriage Journal: Vol 15 No 2 Autumn 1977. Carriage Assoc. of America. 1977. Retrieved August 8, 2025– via Google Books.
  5. 1 2 3 Woodhaven Cultural and Historical Society (April 13, 2019). "Tracking the roots of American horse racing history in Ozone Park: Our Neighborhood, The Way it Was". qns.com. Retrieved August 8, 2025.
  6. ↑ Digital Collections, The New York Public Library. "(cartographic) Jamaica.- Part of Hempstead, Tn. of Hempstead, Queens Co. (1873)". The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations. Retrieved August 10, 2025.
  7. ↑ The Encyclopedia of New York State. Syracuse University Press. 2005. ISBN   978-0-8156-0808-0 . Retrieved August 8, 2025– via Google Books.
  8. ↑ The Farmer's Magazine - Volume 1. Rogerson and Tuxford. 1834. Retrieved August 8, 2025– via Google Books.
  9. ↑ "Racetracks Of Long Ago In And About New York". The Butte Miner. May 11, 1972. p. 68. Retrieved August 11, 2025.
  10. ↑ "New York Trotting". The Evening Post. September 13, 1833. p. 2. Retrieved August 8, 2025.
  11. ↑ Michael Gannon (November 14, 2019). "Horse racing is also the sport of Queens". Queens Chronicle. Retrieved August 9, 2025.
  12. ↑ "Sporting Intelligence". The New York Times. April 25, 1854. p. 1. Retrieved August 8, 2025.
  13. ↑ "The Turf—Rivalry Between American And English Racers". New York Daily Herald. June 26, 1858. p. 4. Retrieved August 8, 2025.
  14. ↑ "A Hundred Years Of Training And Breeding To Clip One Minute From A Mile Course". The Fresno Morning Republican. September 15, 1907. p. 12. Retrieved August 10, 2025.
  15. 1 2 "Centreville Playground". New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. Retrieved August 9, 2025.

40°40′37″N73°50′24″W / 40.67694°N 73.84000°W / 40.67694; -73.84000

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