At The Post
On June 2, 1,800 laborers were put to work on the site which was served by the New Haven Railroad, and straddled the Pawtucket/East Providence line. Building supplies came in via railroad on a regular basis. By the end of July, after around the clock work, Narragansett Park was prepared to open for business. 22 barns with stalls that could hold more than 1,000 horses were up and ready on the backstretch which, along with the 6 Furlong chute, were actually across the city line and in the Rumford, Rhode Island section of East Providence. The venue with the one mile racing oval was described by the Baltimore Sun as; "the showplace of the North, one of the finest tracks in the country". A Daily Racing Form headline read: “NARRAGANSETT COMPLETED-New Rhode Island Track Ready for Gala Opening on Wednesday”. The 182 acre property did open on August 1, 1934, with 37,281 people officially attending and wagering some $351,482 after having been deprived of the opportunity for three decades. Grandstand admission was $1.00 and the Clubhouse charged $2.50. Racing programs that listed all the basic information for a day at the races were 10 cents. Yearly membership was available for the Terrace Club which featured fine dining on the second floor of the Clubhouse and offered a sweeping view looking out from the beginning of the first turn. The first meet was scheduled to run from August 1 to September 3. A second fall meet was run from October 5 to November 3 and was just as popular.
Narragansett Park had taken its name from a defunct race track that had existed in Cranston, Rhode Island at the turn of the previous century. That particular trotting track once hosted the great Dan Patch - the "most famous" horse in the nation during that period. Many of Narragansett's early stakes races paid tribute to Rhode Island's rich history. The first big Saturday stakes race run was the Roger Williams Handicap won by C.V. Whitney's Roustabout. Some of its other important races were the Rhode Island Handicap, Governor's Handicap, King Phillip Handicap, and the Providence Stakes.
The Narragansett Special was the richest race run each year and was named for the "Special" trains that came into the track from Boston, to the north, and New York from the south, on branch lines. In its heyday, the track conducted races in which numerous Thoroughbred greats and consensus Champions competed. The names such as, Equipoise, Challedon, Discovery, War Admiral, Seabiscuit, Stagehand, Armed and Coaltown ring like a virtual Who's Who for horseracing in the 1930s and '40s. They all ran at the track they called "'Gansett". Later, greats such as Misty Morn, Tempted and Gun Bow continued to come in for big races at the race track off Route 1A.
Read more about this topic: Narragansett Race Track
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