A Final Day At Aqueduct, New York’s Forlorn And Forgotten Racetrack

Late in the morning of June 13, as most New York City sports fans were mapping out their plans for watching Game 5 of the NBA Finals, I was on the A train headed away from the Brooklyn neighborhood I’ve called home for 17 years. I was on my way to Aqueduct Racetrack, post time 1:10 p.m. 

At the end of the month, after 132 years of equine action, Aqueduct will no longer run horses. The first race took place on Sept. 27, 1894, on a track operated by the Queens County Jockey Club, in a facility named for its locale, where water was delivered to New York City from the Hempstead Long Island Plain. At one point, Aqueduct was a place where people came to soak in the glitz and glamor of the Sport of Kings. When it finally closes its doors after the 5:44  p.m. post time on June 28, nobody but a dwindling crowd of regulars is likely to even notice.

The story of Aqueduct’s slow demise is not much different from any fading racetrack’s. Off-track betting gave way to TV simulcasts, which gave way to legalized mobile sports gambling. There’s just not much reason to come to a place like this, even for chronic gamblers or horse-racing obsessives.