Narragansett Race Track - Salad Days

Salad Days

Despite being in the midst of the Great Depression, Narragansett Park soon became somewhat of a “High Society” track with it being just 35 miles from Newport, Rhode Island–the summer resort of many wealthy owners from New York City. It was an easy ride for the monied class to come and see their investments run in the flesh. Many wealthy owners of the nation's top outfits kept a string of horses on the shed row of Narragansett and this area of the backstretch was soon referred to as "Millionaire's Row". On October 31, 1934, Mrs. Isabel Dodge Sloane – who had won that year’s Kentucky Derby with Cavalcade and owned Brookmeade Stable – came to ‘Gansett with Okapi and defeated the reigning Horse of the Year, Equipoise, at equal weight (130 lbs.). Mrs. Sloane, who would that year become the first female to top the Owner’s Earnings List for a single season, always considered Okapi her favorite horse. “He was so small”, the "Mistress of Brookmeade" said, “he’d jump under horses and win”. (AP) Still, Cavalcade was the top 3 year old of the year, but when he was injured Discovery came to 'Gansett and set the World Record for 1 3/16 miles in the time of 1:55 while winning the Rhode Island Handicap.

After three highly successful years, with record crowds and betting handle, Narragansett Park opened for an abbreviated 19 day spring meet in May 1937. On four successive Saturday’s, the biggest Stake races of the meet were run and all won by the team of jockey Eddie Smith and trainer Bob Curran for Araho Stable. Araho is O’Hara spelled backwards and the horses were indeed registered in the name of Mrs. Walter E. O’Hara, the wife of the president and manager of the Narragansett Park Racing Association. This, along with the great amounts of money flowing through the facility during the hard times of the Great Depression, garnered the attention of local officials. Not the least of which was Rhode Island Governor Robert E. Quinn. Nicknamed “Battlin’ Bob”, Quinn set up a battle known as the “Race Track War” which would ensue in the fall of 1937.

From the first incident on September 2, the “War” would not be resolved until October 16. The National Guard was called out and men with machine guns blocked the front entrance to the track. Time Magazine reported the story nation wide. Quinn won in the short-term as, with shareholders of the track demanding his resignation, Walter O’Hara was removed from his post. On 2/9/38, Judge Dooley officially took control of the track. Quinn, however, would be defeated for Governor in the elections of 1938 by millionaire William Henry Vanderbilt III as the “Race Track War” was considered a national embarrassment. In February 1941, on a narrow stretch of Route 44, about two miles west from the center of Taunton, Massachusetts, Walter E. O’Hara died in a violent, two car, head-on crash. That “war” was now over.