Wikipedia

Standard Stakes

The Standard Stakes was a Thoroughbred horse race run annually from 1901 through 1908 at Gravesend Race Track in Gravesend, New York on Coney Island. A race for horses age three and older, the mile and a quarter event regularly drew some of the top horses of the day.[1]

Standard Stakes
Discontinued stakes race
LocationGravesend Race Track, Gravesend, New York,
United States
Inaugurated1901
Race typeThoroughbred – Flat racing
Race information
Distance1 1/4 miles (10 furlongs)
SurfaceDirt
Trackleft-handed
QualificationThree-year-olds & up, WFA

Historical notes

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In the 1901 inaugural only two horses ran after future Hall of Fame trainer Jack Joyner announced that Perry Belmont's Ethelbert would compete, leaving Richard Croker's Beau Gallant as the sole competition. A July 13, 1902 Daily Racing Form article stated that Ethelbert defeated Beau Gallant while "only cantering all the way" and adding that "Ethelbert is justly entitled to rank with some of the best handicap horses of the decade."[2]

There was another strong field in the 1903 race won by Heno who defeated Africander, that year's American Champion Three-Year-Old Colt whose wins included the Belmont Stakes, Suburban Handicap and the Lawrence Realization Stakes. Third to Heno was Major Daingerfield who would win the 1904 edition of the Standard Stakes.

The 1905 Standard Stakes was won by the outstanding racemare Beldame. Recognized as the American Horse of the Year of 1904, she was a 1956 U.S. Hall of Fame inductee for whom the Beldame Stakes is named.[3]

The three-year-old filly Whimsical won the 1906 Standard Stakes. She came into the race after she had won the May 22 Preakness Stakes at the Gravesend track, a victory which at that time made her the second filly to ever win that American Classic.[4][5]

Future U.S. Hall of Fame inductee Peter Pan won the 1907 race and would be named American Champion Three-Year-Old Colt for that year, one in which he also won the Belmont Stakes.

The final running of the Standard Stakes took place on June 9, 1908 and was won for the second straight time by owner James R. Keene. This win came with Ballot who would be recognized as the American Champion Older Male Horse that year and again in 1910. [6]

The end of a race and of a racetrack

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On June 11, 1908, the Republican controlled New York Legislature under Governor Charles Evans Hughes passed the Hart–Agnew anti-betting legislation.[7] The owners of Gravesend Race Track, and other racing facilities in New York State, struggled to stay in business without income from betting.[8] Racetrack operators had no choice but to drastically reduce the purse money being paid out or in some cases consolidating races with similar conditions which meant placing some races on what the owners hoped would be a short-lived hiatus.[9]

In spite of strong opposition by prominent owners such as August Belmont Jr. and Harry Payne Whitney, reform legislators were not happy when they learned that betting was still going on at racetracks between individuals and they had further restrictive legislation passed by the New York Legislature in 1910.[10] The Agnew–Perkins Law, a series of four bills and recorded as the Executive Liability Act, made it possible for racetrack owners and members of its board of directors to be fined and imprisoned if anyone was found betting, even privately, anywhere on their premises.[11] After a 1911 amendment to the law that would limit the liability of owners and directors was defeated in the Legislature, every racetrack in New York State shut down.[12] Owners, whose horses of racing age had nowhere to go, began sending them, their trainers and their jockeys to race in England and France. Many horses ended their racing careers there and a number remained to become an important part of the European horse breeding industry. Thoroughbred Times reported that more than 1,500 American horses were sent overseas between 1908 and 1913 and of them at least 24 were either past, present, or future Champions.[13] When a February 21, 1913 ruling by the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division saw horse racing return in 1913.[14] However, it was too late for the Gravesend horse racing facility and it never reopened.[15][16]

Records

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Speed record:

  • 2:05.60 @ 11⁄4 miles – Peter Pan (1907) & Ballot (1908)
  • 2:33.00 @ 11⁄2 miles – Heno (1903)

Most wins:

  • No horse ever won this race more than once.

Most wins by a jockey:

  • No jockey ever won this race more than once.

Most wins by a trainer:

Most wins by an owner:

Winners

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Year
 Winner
 Age
 Jockey
 Trainer
 Owner
 Dist.
(Miles) 		Time
 Win$
1908 Ballot 4 Joe Notter James G. Rowe Sr. James R. Keene 11⁄4 2:05.60 $4,925
1907 Peter Pan 3 George Mountain James G. Rowe Sr. James R. Keene 11⁄4 2:05.60 $5,300
1906 Whimsical 3 Leroy Williams Tim J. Gaynor Tim J. Gaynor 11⁄4 2:05.80 $5,075
1905 Beldame 4 Frank O'Neill Fred Burlew August Belmont Jr. 11⁄4 2:07.60 $4,850
1904 Major Daingerfield 5 Jack Martin Thomas Welsh William B. Leeds Sr. 11⁄4 2:10.00 $5,350
1903 Heno 4 Harry Michaels William Lakeland William S. Fanshawe 11⁄2 2:33.00 $2,925
1902 Advance Guard 5 Willie Shaw Alexander Shields James Carruthers / Alexander Shields 11⁄2 2:35.80 $2,530
1901 Ethelbert 5 Winfield O'Connor A. Jack Joyner Perry Belmont 11⁄2 2:36.00 $1,405

References

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  1. ^ "Complete History of the Standard Stakes". Daily Racing Form. 1908-06-10. Retrieved 2019-07-21 – via University of Kentucky Archives.
  2. ^ "Ethelbert in Training". Daily Racing Form. 1902-07-13. Retrieved 2019-08-11 – via University of Kentucky Archives.
  3. ^ "Beldame Was Winner of Standard Stakes" (PDF). New York Times, page 5. 1905-06-09. Retrieved 2019-08-10.
  4. ^ "Whimsical Gives Ormondale Decisive Beating". The San Francisco Call. 1906-06-13. Retrieved 2019-01-01.
  5. ^ "Whimsical Easily Won The Preakness Stakes". New York Times, page 7. 1906-05-23. Retrieved 2019-01-01.
  6. ^ "New York Form Chart". Daily Racing Form. 1908-06-10. Retrieved 2019-07-24 – via University of Kentucky Archives.
  7. ^ "Penalties in the New York Bills". Daily Racing Form. 1908-01-18. Retrieved 2018-10-26 – via University of Kentucky Archives.
  8. ^ "Keep Up Betting Ban". New York Times. 1908-09-01. Retrieved 2018-11-06.
  9. ^ "Coney Island Clubs Sturdy Stand". Daily Racing Form. 1908-08-11. Retrieved 2019-02-03 – via University of Kentucky Archives.
  10. ^ Liebman, Bennett (May 24, 2009). "The First American Triple Crown Series". The Rail. Retrieved September 2, 2017.
  11. ^ "Racing Men Attack Anti-Betting Bills – Place Every Man Who Makes Private Wager in Jeopardy". New York Times. 1910-04-07. Retrieved 2019-06-29.
  12. ^ "Race Track Bill Defeated In Senate; Measure Modifying Directors' Liability for Gambling Fails of Passage". The New York Times. July 14, 1911. Retrieved September 2, 2017 – via NYTimes.com.
  13. ^ "Racing Through the Century". Thoroughbred Times. February 14, 2000. Retrieved September 2, 2017.
  14. ^ "Oral Betting Held Legal: Appellate Division of New York Supreme Court Renders Important Decision". Daily Racing Form. 1913-02-22. Retrieved 2019-06-29 – via University of Kentucky Archives.
  15. ^ "Destruction Wrought by Hughes". Daily Racing Form. 1908-12-15. Retrieved 2018-11-30 – via University of Kentucky Archives.
  16. ^ "Famous Old Track is Sold". Daily Racing Form. 1914-11-17. Retrieved 2018-11-30 – via University of Kentucky Archives.
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