Uploaded January 2012 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
The Gravesend Handicap, Brooklyn, May 26, 1904
American Biograph & Mutoscope Co.
Camera: G.W. "Billy" Bitzer
Gravesend Race Track opened in 1887 and remained in operation until 1910. The first 'Handicap' was a 1 1/4 miles left-handed race on dirt and became part of the 'Handicap Triple' which today is preceded by the Metropolitan Handicap and followed by the Suburban Handicap.
The Brooklyn Handicap is an American Thoroughbred horse race run annually in early June at Belmont Park in Elmont, New York, on Long Island. It currently is a Grade II event open to three-year-olds and up willing to race one and one-half miles on dirt. The film shows the pre-race parade, the start, finish, and weighing out. The Picket was ridden by Jockey Oscar Helgesen who took the prize in 2:06.60. The Picket was trained by Carroll B. Reid and owned by Waldeck Stable. Four horses have won the Handicap Triple: Whisk Broom II (1913), Tom Fool (1953), Kelso (1961), Fit to Fight (1984).
Sheepshead Bay
Neighborhood in southeastern Brooklyn, overlooking an ocean inlet of the same name to its south and bordered to the north by Marine Park, to the east by Shellbank Creek, to the south by Manhattan Beach, and to the west by Gravesend. The area was the site of a large Canarsee Indian village and remained undeveloped for more than a century and a half after the English settled Gravesend in 1645 only a short distance to the northwest.
During the 1870s John Y. McKane, the notorious political ''boss'' of Gravesend, facilitated the extension of several railroads and boulevards to Coney Island, making the whole southern shore more accessible than it had been before. Meanwhile, the Coney Island Jockey Club opened the Sheepshead Bay Race track on a site of 2200 acres (one thousand hectares). This was replaced in 1915 by the Sheepshead Speedway, which was demolished in 1923; the site was then subdivided into small building lots and developed.
- (excerpts) Ellen Fletcher / Encyclopedia of New York City - Edited by Kenneth T. Jackson
A brief clip of a race at the track in 1897: youtube.com/watch?v=SgOYowImXPk&feature=g-upl&context=G2c0e0fbAUAAAAAAAsAA
John Phillip Sousa's 'Manhattan Beach March' / 'El Capitan' from an 1895 Edison cylinder: youtube.com/watch?v=-QtRRzyZ3Rg
Recommended Reading:
The Sport of Kings and the Kings of Crime
Horse Racing, Politics, and Organized Crime in New York, 1865-1913
Steven A. Riess
01/05/12 - 3
The Gravesend Handicap, Brooklyn, May 26, 1904
American Biograph & Mutoscope Co.
Camera: G.W. "Billy" Bitzer
Gravesend Race Track opened in 1887 and remained in operation until 1910. The first 'Handicap' was a 1 1/4 miles left-handed race on dirt and became part of the 'Handicap Triple' which today is preceded by the Metropolitan Handicap and followed by the Suburban Handicap.
The Brooklyn Handicap is an American Thoroughbred horse race run annually in early June at Belmont Park in Elmont, New York, on Long Island. It currently is a Grade II event open to three-year-olds and up willing to race one and one-half miles on dirt. The film shows the pre-race parade, the start, finish, and weighing out. The Picket was ridden by Jockey Oscar Helgesen who took the prize in 2:06.60. The Picket was trained by Carroll B. Reid and owned by Waldeck Stable. Four horses have won the Handicap Triple: Whisk Broom II (1913), Tom Fool (1953), Kelso (1961), Fit to Fight (1984).
Sheepshead Bay
Neighborhood in southeastern Brooklyn, overlooking an ocean inlet of the same name to its south and bordered to the north by Marine Park, to the east by Shellbank Creek, to the south by Manhattan Beach, and to the west by Gravesend. The area was the site of a large Canarsee Indian village and remained undeveloped for more than a century and a half after the English settled Gravesend in 1645 only a short distance to the northwest.
During the 1870s John Y. McKane, the notorious political ''boss'' of Gravesend, facilitated the extension of several railroads and boulevards to Coney Island, making the whole southern shore more accessible than it had been before. Meanwhile, the Coney Island Jockey Club opened the Sheepshead Bay Race track on a site of 2200 acres (one thousand hectares). This was replaced in 1915 by the Sheepshead Speedway, which was demolished in 1923; the site was then subdivided into small building lots and developed.
- (excerpts) Ellen Fletcher / Encyclopedia of New York City - Edited by Kenneth T. Jackson
A brief clip of a race at the track in 1897: youtube.com/watch?v=SgOYowImXPk&feature=g-upl&context=G2c0e0fbAUAAAAAAAsAA
John Phillip Sousa's 'Manhattan Beach March' / 'El Capitan' from an 1895 Edison cylinder: youtube.com/watch?v=-QtRRzyZ3Rg
Recommended Reading:
The Sport of Kings and the Kings of Crime
Horse Racing, Politics, and Organized Crime in New York, 1865-1913
Steven A. Riess
01/05/12 - 3
