Suburban Handicap

The Suburban Handicap is an American Grade II Thoroughbred horse race run annually at Belmont Park in Elmont, New York. Open to horses age three and older, it is now run at the one-and-one-eighth mile distance on dirt for a $400,000 purse.

In 2009, this race was downgraded from a Grade I to a Grade II event.

The Suburban Handicap was contested at a distance of one and one half miles in 1975 and at a mile and three-sixteenths in 1976. Beginning in 1978, the race was started on Belmont Park's clubhouse turn and run at a mile and a quarter.

Named after the City and Suburban Handicap in England, the Suburban will have had its 120th running in 2006. First held at Leonard Jerome's Sheepshead Bay Race Track in 1884, it stayed at that location until 1913. For 1915 alone, the Suburban was held at Empire City Race Track; afterward, it was moved to Belmont Park and there it has remained except for the races of 1961 to 1974 and 1976. During that time, the Suburban was hosted at Aqueduct Racetrack. The race was not run for three years: 1911, 1912, and 1914.

The Suburban is the final of the three races that once composed the New York Handicap Triple series of races, as it follows the Metropolitan Handicap and the Brooklyn Handicap. It is currently sponsored by Shadwell Farm. Four horses have won the Handicap Triple:

• Whisk Broom II (1913)
• Tom Fool (1953)
• Kelso (1961)
• Fit to Fight (1984)

The list of former winners is like a who's who of the race horse world, featuring some of American racing's greatest champions. The first mare to win the Suburban Handicap was the great Hall of Famer, Imp.