It was Aqueduct’s time to go, and you could see that coming from a long way off. For many years, it had been falling apart due to neglect, and Sunday’s card will be its last. How strange that New York City will no longer have a thoroughbred track.
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Aqueduct was the poor relation of the New York Racing Association, and unlike Belmont Park and Saratoga, it was not where the elite would meet. It was a funky, functional joint where blue-collar New Yorkers came to play. Starting way back in 1894, generations of fans saw dozens of all-time greats, including Man o’ War, Kelso, Dr. Fager, Forego, and Secretariat. Among more recent stars, Easy Goer, Cigar, and Secretariat stand out.
Starting in the Seventies, from late October, when Belmont closed, to early May, when it reopened, the game in New York was played at Aqueduct. The late, great racing writer Ed Comerford spent many winter afternoons there. To get to the press box, he had to trudge through the windswept parking lot, where huge gulls pecked at bags of discarded fast food.
“It’s my job, so I have to be here,” Ed said. “But whenever anybody gets the idea to come to Aqueduct in January, they should ask themselves ‘Why?’”
Winters at the Big A: Frigid but Somehow Cool
On those frigid days, Aqueduct was like a giant subway car, with horseplayers braving the cold for two minutes to watch a race before ducking back inside. Beneath the TV monitors in the grandstand, those who chose to stay warm would improvise matchless theater.
When the horses reached the stretch, the decibel level peaked. New York is the most diverse city in the world, so you would hear raucous rooting in many accents and languages. Maybe that’s how the crowd sounded around the Old Testament’s Tower of Babel.
Only at Aqueduct.
Sentimental Journey in the final days of Big A
It may seem odd to wax nostalgic about it, but for many, it’s a sentimental journey. NYRA racing analyst Richard Migliore rode a track record 2,238 winners there, and he’s going to miss it.
“Aqueduct was the beginning of everything for me,” the 62-year-old Migliore said. “I grew up eight miles away. When I went there with my father as a kid, I knew right away what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.
“I fell in love with the place. I fell in love with the sport there.”
So did Queens native Mike Repole, one of the world’s most prominent thoroughbred owners. As an underage teenager, he would take the Woodhaven Avenue bus to Aqueduct with his friend John Camus and hang out in the grandstand. They would look for the “nearest old man” and give him $2 to make bets for them.
I’ve never ridden or owned a racehorse, and I didn’t get to Aqueduct until I was 31. My debut was on a windy autumn day, and I loved its deliciously seedy vibe. I liked it so much that a year later, in 1982, I held my bachelor party there.
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It’s also where I made one of my biggest scores. On a blustery afternoon in March 1985, I watched a 50-1 shot named Equalize rally to top a $1,006 exacta. It was all me. Oh, that was a golden moment I’ll never forget.
Full disclosure: I must admit that I haven’t been to Aqueduct in a long time. I retired as Newsday’s racing writer in August 2019, and that year’s Wood Memorial marked my last visit.
It’s a 2½-hour round trip from my home on Long Island, and I’ve gotten old and jaded. After visiting 118 tracks on four continents, the trip to South Ozone Park no longer gets my juices flowing the way it did 45 years ago. But I’ll never forget a place that inspired me to race around the world to cover the Sport of Kings. Farewell, old friend – lost and gone forever, but never to be forgotten.
Ed McNamara is an award-winning racing writer who has covered the sport since 1981 for The Bergen (N.J.) Record, Newsday, ESPN, Thorocap, and USRacing. He is the author of Cajun Racing: From the Bush Tracks to the Triple Crown and Racing Around the World, and a contributor to The Most Glorious Crown and The Racetracks of America. He has also written for racing publications in France and Italy.
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