Name the defunct horse tracks you have been to and what you miss.
 

For me the list is short, Agua Caliente, Pomona/Fairplex and Hollywood Park.
The only thing that stopped at AC was thoroughbred racing, the sports betting and dog racing lived on. It seemed at AC most all the money was bet in the exotics pools, so you could occasionally grab a nice win price, the track toward the end was a bias waiting for a place to happen and a handful of riders caught on to it quick. My favorite rider was Humberto Enriquez, I was expecting him to show up in the states, but he never did to my knowledge.


My love of Pomona/Fairplex was mostly in the 1/2 mile track days back when OTBs did not exist in SoCal, and admission to the track was free. It was on the LA County fair grounds and the meet ran concurrent to the fair. I doubt a betting pool ever had a higher percentage of unschooled money than that place. You could hit some very nice prices.



Hollywood Park was the usually the longest drive from where I lived and not my most profitable track but it had lots of fond memories. First time I ever walked out with a 4 digit profit and I got to listen to the calls of Harry Henson, seeing Landaluce and Melair run, and when they had harness seeing Niatross.

Garden State Park --- May probably still be the track I attended most often, all the others I've only been a few times or once.

Trinity Meadows
Bowie
Atlantic City
Blue Ribbon Downs
Birmingham

Harness:

FreeState --- Spent many a summer night here, miss the cashing of tickets. Some of my biggest hits came here.

Brandywine
Liberty Bell
Garden State

Sportsman's Park, in Cicero Illinois. The first track that I ever visited...and the only defunct track that I will ever miss.

Detroit Race Course
Greenwood
Liberty Bell

Drove by many times, but never had time to stop in

Beulah
Suffolk

Miss Detroit most of all. Got there a lot on business trips - it was right near the airport. And the "Tout" horse racing store down the street, and then in the track grandstand eventually. Loved that place. Owner was a Sartin guy, posted his readouts on the wall by a "free" coffee pot.

Sportsmans Park
Washington Park
"Old" Hawthorne
"Old" Arlington
What I miss more than anything else are the crowds...the stands full of people and the electricity/noise that seemed to build to a crescendo as the horses turned for home. Don't get me wrong...the newer Arlington is a palace but there was something about the cavernous "old" Arlington that presented an attraction to young kid. There were places you could just get lost,and I did,plenty of times as a child.

Wdym on "Tout racing store"?

Like selling picks/systems?

Suffolk
Rock
Hollywood
Fairplex
Detroit
Mass Fairs

Wiggle-runners:
Foxboro
Scarborough
Hazel Park
Hinsdale

Great topic:

Atlantic City
“New” Garden State (was never at the old one)
Calder
Greenwood (for harness- had my first long shot there Willvan Sam at 20-1)
Roosevelt
Hazel Park and The Woodlands still in business?
Arlington soon-to-be I guess. Tragic.

Wonderland

Hinsdale (my wife skied and we would stay at a friend’s place at Mt Snow. She would ski and I would drive to Hinsdale- 45 mins or so. The name of the lure there was “The Colonel”)

What I miss most was that Atl City ran the 6 day meet in late April/early May. It was the official dawn of spring/ summer for a degenerate like me. All winter I’d have either bet from home or at Monmouth simulcasts- all indoors and no smoking or live horses. AC was the opposite. Seemingly everyone smoked, and they had this wide open walking ring to see the horses. I couldn’t wait to smell cigar/cigarette smoke and horse shit!

Interesting that already there are quite a few tracks I never heard of. As I have said before, SoCal where I first bet in in 1975 and left in 2010, was a dozen years behind in getting OTBs compared to the East coast. Las Vegas 250-350 miles away from where I lived did not have much either, back in the day. Agua Caliente in Tijuana Mexico is where I heard of or bet a lot of the out of state tracks mentioned here, along with reading all of Andrew Beyer's books.

Hollywood Park with Harry Henson calling the races with "The flag is up" in his gravely voice in the 70's.
The blatant predictability of the fast dirt.
Ack Ack, Kennedy Road, and Snow Chief where I "learned" that all gray and white horses win on the turf.
The Goose Girl floating around on the infield lake and walking around in the stands.
This is where I made some money and thought I knew everything about horse racing. :lol:

Marlboro, Bowie, Atlantic City, Gr.Barrington, Marshfield, Northampton, Dover, Hollywood, Caliente, shenandoah. I know Dover is still running but we used to go when they ran thoroughbreds. I was only 6 or 7 when we used to go to Dover but it was fun. Saturday night racing, then bird watching in the morning with Dad and then Sunday afternoon racing. No Sunday racing in Maryland back then. Marlboro reopened in the 90s for 2 or 3 days a year so I don't know if that really counts.

"The flag is up, and there they go!" I loved Harry Henson's calls. Not thoroughbreds but Hollywood Park's Friday night harness cards caused a lot of rough Saturdays for me. I lived 110 miles away, worked a day shift as a machinist and often OT was available on Saturday. I worked a lot of Saturdays on 2 hours sleep.

I bet a few of those harness races too. Your schedule was rough. ;)

Blue Bonnets L'Hippodrome de Montréal

Calder
Tropical
Hialeah
Seminole

Blue Grass

Bowie

Atlantic City
Garden State

Narragansett
Lincoln
Suffolk
Rockingham
Green Mountain
Scarborough (early 1960's)

Retama (Bill Allen)

Caliente - they had bookies with fixed odds as well as mutuels. You could bet $1 with the books and age didn't matter. :cool:

Tanforan - a deep, slow course that favored horses that liked the mud

Washington Park and old Arlington

Hialeah - the most beautiful track that ever was

Tropical Park

Randall Park - it was near Thistledown and the last time I was there the shopping mall that replaced it was defunct

Old Latonia

Beulah Park

Both Garden States
Atl City
Liberty Bell
Brandywine
Rockingham
Suffolk
Green Mountain
Calder
Hollywood
Lewiston ME
Hinsdale(trotters)
Sportsmans
Beulah
River Downs
Roosevelt
Biscayne Kennel Club
Flagler
Tampa dogs
Pompano (I think they're done)
Foxboro

Louisville Downs
Audubon Raceway/Riverside Downs

Caliente*
DRC*
Fairplex*
Stockton*
Vallejo*
Portland Meadows
Playfair
Yakima Meadows*
Longacres
Bay Meadows*
Atokad
Souix City
Ak Sar Ben*
Columbus
Bluegrass Downs
Anthony*
Woodlands*
Sportsman's
Blue Ribbon*
Sports Creek
Hazel Park
Beulah
Calder
Hialeah*
Bowie
Suffolk
Atlantic City
Rockingham
Hollywood Park*

* Called races there

Green Mountain
Berkshire Downs
Great Barrington Fair
Lincoln Downs
Suffolk
Rockingham
Hollywood
Centennial
Pikes Peak Meadows
La Mesa Park
Santa Fe Downs
Juarez
My favorite was Green Mountain, where I got my handicapping start in 1963.

I loved Centennial!....In Littleton, not that far away from Lowry AFB, where I did my Tech training.

Pompano still going I think. I forgot about River Downs- I’d been there too. I think Belterra is the same footprint but a different building, or did they move?

Hollywood Park:
Friday night card @ Hollywood Park.
When I had to spend the week working in LA, great way to end it before flying back to Seattle.

Longacres

This one is very easy for me. Roosevelt Raceway. I have very fond memories of that track.

Bowie
Calder
Hialeah

Sportsman's Park - miss terribly, loved that track

Old River Downs - all long and mostly turf Labor Day cards and a
really good Dixieland band

Original Lincoln Race Course - Nebraska
Balmoral
Washington Park
Maywood Park - harness
Aurora Downs - harness
Beulah Park
Hollywood Park
Hazel Park
Hialeah
Suffolk Downs
Calder

"Where it all began, where it is today".

To paraphrase The Pretenders,

"the tracks of the country
have been replaced by shopping malls"

Roosevelt, Liberty Bell and Brandywine all fit that description I believe

Hialeah for Tbreds

Hialeah & Calder

The other one is Cahokia Downs, which closed in 1980 when I was 12 years old.

My favorite track that died was Sportsman's Park. It had sharp turns and a shorter stretch than Hawthorne or Arlington Park, so it made a more interesting and profitable betting situation for a handicapper and gave horses who liked those conditions some opportunity to make money. They always ran in spring, so it was nice to look forward to good weather and horse racing after two months of ice, cold and no horses.

Balmoral, Washington Park, Beulah and Hialeah are all tracks I went to that are no longer around but Sportsman's was different and special.

Tropical
Hialeah
Calder
Old Gulfstream
Bowie
Rockingham
Greenwood (Canada)
Muskegon
Old Arlington
New Arlington (soon to be)
Balmoral
Maywood
Old Hawthorne
Sportsmans
Aksarben
Thunderbird Downs (Las Vegas)
Washington Park


I actually liked Tropical best. Got a chance to talk to Mr. McKnight at the winners circle when he won a race with a half to Dr. Fager named Highbinder.
Both old and new Hawthornes were and are dumps. You may not have liked Marje Everett,
but she knew how to run a racetrack.

Green mountain was pretty cool. When I went there one night with my cousin following a losing day at Saratoga they were running the dogs then, it was probably late 80s. I never suspected it would be closing down shortly after and I was looking forward to going back someday. I remember it now and then and think that was a cool little track that I'd like to take my kids to sometime, but it's abandoned today. Hard to believe how fast life passes us by.

Belair
Havre de grace
Marlboro
Cumberland

How many thoroughbred days a year did they typically have at Blue Ribbon Downs? I seem to only recall seeing BRD horses in quarter horse races at Los Al. If it was a lower end track I bet on many a low end thoroughbred claiming race as I hit the LA County fair meet a half dozen times a year, and always bet the whole California Fair circuit when OTBs and simulcasting opened up in the mid 80's in SoCal.



The only defunct dog track I have been to is Phoenix Greyhound Park. Even though I placed my first horse race bet 46 years ago I have only bet at 9 horse tracks and 3 dog tracks. Probably an aversion to airplane rides has contributed to that, they make me feel like a sardine in a can. I have been in the area of 5 other tracks but it was on non racing days.

Bay Meadows and "Do Dah" Longacres are the ones I really miss, particularly the latter....NO race track I ever visited, and it is now around 70 now, was as much fun as a Saturday card in Renton. The CROWD was as much a part of the race as the horses. The track in Auburn today is functional but does not have a bit of what Longares give you

In the short Bay Meadows fair meeting, where there were NO seasonal boxes, I would go to their office (just up the street from Redwood City where I lived) and bought box E9 for the two Saturdays. It was right at the point where the angled grandstand met the 3 foot higher clubhouse so we could watch every race without having to look over the dummies who would stand up at the stretch.

Little Sandown in Victoria BC was fun . The first day I was there it was raining (as it did almost everyday from October to December in British Columbia) and there were pots and pans all over from the kitchen catching the water from the leaking roof....Interesting place. Featured a big yellow ribbon around an old Oak the infield.

Always wanted to go to Playfair and Yakima Meadows but never got there before they closed permanently

I realized I didn't add any commentary...

Rock: first went in utero. Dad owned/drove trotters there, accordingly I thought he was as cool as Carl Yastrzemski. Never saw TBs there until years later, then it just became such a neat, bucolic day out, right up 93. I'd/we'd usually supplement a trip there with a trip to Granite State potato chips, Red Barn, Cuomo's, or a truck farm for some sweet corn.

Hollywood: the only SoCal track I consistently did "ok" on as a gambler.
Fairplex: meh. Too hot.
Detroit: skipped a couple too many classes at UofM to visit here. Was already on the decline by that time and I don't recall much.
Mass Fairs: memory is dim, as I only ever went as a kid, not an adult. I don't recall enjoying it much.

Wiggle-runners:
Foxboro: dad drove here too. hung out on the backside. Mgmt was not as liberal as Rock was about letting me join dad in the jog cart.
Scarborough: ditto. Visited a few years ago and got really nostalgic. Hit three exactas in a row with tiny pools and left quickly to find a good lobster roll.
Hazel Park: dragged many friends from UofM to enjoy a night of racing there.
Hinsdale: dad, see above.

You never were tempted to follow in your father's foot steps? As someone with inside knowledge would you think it possible to drive and train as a hobby and keep a day job?

Aksarben
They had this indoor auditorium/small theater w/a big screen and the lights would go down at post time. Some of the jockeys on suspension would be there; remember sitting next to RD Williams. That's where I made my first underage/illegal bets because my dad was sick of betting for me:D

My step-dad did the same to me, I think he was pissed at my beginner's luck on our first trip. That was back in the day when you had to wait in different lines for WPS and Exacta bets, and the denominations were separated also.

I was only 14, but I got away with it. That was back in the day if you looked close to around being old enough no one carded you. Being close to six foot and 200 pounds with an ok mustache helped.