The Great American Stakes is a defunct American Thoroughbred horse race last run annually at Belmont Park in Elmont, New York. Open to two-year-old horses, it was last competed at a distance of five and a half furlongs.
It was inaugurated as a five furlong race at the Gravesend Race Track at Gravesend on Coney Island, New York. A legislated ban on parimutuel betting by the State of New York resulted in the cancellation of the race in 1911 and 1912 and the Gravesend track never reopened. The race was moved to the Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, New York was still there in 1973, By 1977, the event was being hosted by Belmont Park in Elmont, New York.
Of interest, in the 1936 running of the Great American Stakes, Fairy Hill defeated War Admiral and in 1977, Alydar easily beat Affirmed.
Read more about Great American Stakes: Winners (partial List)
Famous quotes containing the words american and/or stakes:
“When an American heiress wants to buy a man, she at once crosses the Atlantic. The only really materialistic people I have ever met have been Europeans.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“This man was very clever and quick to learn anything in his line. Our tent was of a kind new to him; but when he had once seen it pitched, it was surprising how quickly he would find and prepare the pole and forked stakes to pitch it with, cutting and placing them right the first time, though I am sure that the majority of white men would have blundered several times.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)