Driving Park was a harness racing track in Rochester, New York which operated between 1874 and 1902. [1]
The track was an irregular oval with a distance of one mile, and was described as "the fastest mile track in the United States." [2] It was located on the north-west corner of Driving Park Avenue and Dewey Avenue, then called The Boulevard, in Rochester.
From 1875 to 1895 the track hosted a leg of the Grand Circuit. [3] For a time it was "the most famous racetrack in the world," but began to decline in the 1890s with the introduction of anti-gambling laws. In 1899 two of the three grandstands were destroyed in a fire, and the park was finally sold at auction in 1902. [2]
Today the former location of the park is a residential area.
Harness racing is a form of horse racing in which the horses race at a specific gait. They usually pull a two-wheeled cart called a sulky, or spider, or chariot occupied by a driver. In Europe, and less frequently in Australia and New Zealand, races with jockeys riding directly on saddled trotters are also conducted.
The Little Brown Jug is a harness race for three-year-old pacing standardbred horses hosted by the Delaware County Agricultural Society since 1946 at the Delaware County Fairgrounds racetrack in Delaware, Ohio. The race takes place every year on the third Thursday after Labor Day.
East Rochester is a coterminous town and village located southeast of the City of Rochester in Monroe County, New York, United States. The village, home to approximately 6,600 people, is surrounded by Pittsford on the west side and by Perinton to the east. Most of the southern boundary is delimited by New York State Route 31F.
Albion is a village in Orleans County, New York, United States. The population was 5,637 as of the 2020 census, down 419 from the 2010 census. The village is centrally located in the county, and is partly within the towns of both Albion and Gaines. It is the county seat of Orleans County and is about 30 miles (48 km) west/northwest of the Rochester. Albion is part of the Rochester metropolitan area.
Mount Morris is a village in the town of Mount Morris in Livingston County, New York, United States. The village population was 2,986 at the 2010 census, out of 4,465 in the entire town. The village and town are named after Robert Morris.
Mohawk Racetrack is a harness racing track in Campbellville, Ontario. It is owned by Woodbine Entertainment Group and is about 40 km southwest of the company's other racetrack, Woodbine Racetrack in Toronto, Ontario. Woodbine Mohawk Park also has a large slot machine parlour with over 1,000 slot machines, which is operated by Great Canadian Gaming; some of the revenue from this operation is used to increase the horseracing purses. Ken Middleton is the longtime track announcer.
Sunlight Park was the first baseball stadium in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The all wood structure was built in 1886 at a cost of $7,000 by the International League baseball team the Toronto Baseball Club.
Summit Point Motorsports Park is a road racing and driver training facility located in Jefferson County, West Virginia about two hours west of Washington, D.C. in the state's Eastern Panhandle.
Good Time Park was a mile-long race track in Goshen, New York that hosted the Hambletonian harness race from 1930 to 1956.
Harness racing, also colloquially known as trotting or the trots, is a spectator sport in Australia, with significant amounts of money wagered annually with bookmakers and the Totalisator Agency Board (TAB). In Australia there are 90 harness racing tracks, which hold over 1,900 meetings annually. There are approximately 2,900 drivers and 4,000 trainers with about 5,000 Standardbred horses foaled and registered each year.
Eastman Business Park, formerly Kodak Park, is a large manufacturing and industrial complex in the city of Rochester, New York, in the United States. The complex is run by Eastman Kodak and is located 3 miles (5 km) north of downtown Rochester and 4 miles (6 km) south of Lake Ontario. The complex runs parallel to New York State Route 104 and Mount Read Boulevard for most of its length. Also part of the complex is the Kodak Center performing arts center and conference facility.
General Railway Signal Company (GRS) was an American manufacturing company located in the Rochester, New York area. GRS was focused on railway signaling equipment, systems and services. The company was established in 1904 and became part of Alstom Transport in 1998. GRS was a member of the Dow Jones Industrial Average from 1928 to 1930.
The Park Avenue main line, which consists of the Park Avenue Tunnel and the Park Avenue Viaduct, is a railroad line in the New York City borough of Manhattan, running entirely along Park Avenue. The line carries four tracks of the Metro-North Railroad as a tunnel from Grand Central Terminal at 42nd Street to a portal at 97th Street, where it rises to a viaduct north of 99th Street and continues over the Harlem River into the Bronx over the Park Avenue Bridge. During rush hours, Metro-North uses three of the four tracks in the peak direction.
Black Creek Park is a park in Monroe County, New York, about ten miles (16 km) southwest of the city of Rochester. It is a relatively undeveloped 1,505-acre (6.09 km2) park operated by Monroe County, including soccer and baseball fields, as well as a number of trails for hiking, horseback riding, cross-country skiing, and snowshoeing; picnic areas, a sledding hill, and two enclosed lodges. The current foreman is Ed Britton.
The Readville Race Track located in Readville, Massachusetts had a famous and exciting history for Harness Racing, Motorcycle Racing, Auto Racing and early military combat Aviation. When the track officially opened on August 25, 1896, it quickly became one of the premier venues for harness racing in the United States. It was known as one of the country's fastest courses and many records were broken there. In 1903 history was made at Readville when a five-year-old mare named Lou Dillon became the first trotter to run a two-minute mile. On August 25, 1908 the most spectacular event in all harness horse history was staged, the $50,000 American Trotting Derby won by Allan Winter.
The Grand View Beach Railway was a scenic electric street railway along the shore of Lake Ontario from the village of Ontario Beach, a suburb of Rochester, to Manitou Beach.
The Grand Circuit, also known as the "Big Wheel", is a group of harness racing stakes races run at various race tracks around the United States. Run on one-mile tracks, it is "the oldest continuing horse-racing series in the United States."
Driving Park usually refers to places that currently are or formerly were site of harness or auto racing tracks.
Fleetwood Park was a 19th-century harness racing track in what is now the Morrisania section of the Bronx in New York, United States. The races were a popular form of entertainment, drawing crowds as large as 10,000 spectators, who would come from Manhattan and Brooklyn. One travel guide described the 1-mile course as "the most famous trotting track in the country".
Charter Oak Park was an American harness racing track in Hartford, Connecticut that was open from 1874 to 1893, when an anti-gambling bill resulted in its closure. It reopened in 1897 and remained in operation until 1931.
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