BY JACK DELANEY | jdelaney@quensledger.com
SOUTH OZONE PARK — Joey and Bean sat in the empty bleachers of the Aqueduct Racetrack, reminiscing with a gaggle of spouses and friends, while a groundsman hovered behind them.
Finally he broke into the conversation: “I’m sorry, we’re closing up,” he said. ”For good?” asked Joey. The man hesitated — technically, the track would be open to bettors for a few more months, just without any races — then thought better of it.
“Yeah,” he said. “For good.”
Like many local diehards, Joey, 58, first visited Aqueduct with his father as a kid. Soon he started coming by himself: At age 12, he’d skip school to watch the races, once winning $70 with some change he rescued from the floor. When he began courting his future wife, he’d cover the phone to muffle the cheers — a dead giveaway he was at Aqueduct.
Bean — or Robert, 68, if you’re being formal — has been a regular for even longer. The names of certain horses conjure a wide, almost maniacal grin. Harp Inlet, for instance: On one fateful afternoon in the 90s, Bean bet $30 on a Pick Six, attempting to correctly predict the winners of six consecutive races. The first four results went his way, but not the fifth. “I was sick, sick,” he remembers. When he guessed the sixth pick, too, he was inconsolable. So close.
But as Bean queued up to redeem his ticket, he noticed a discrepancy: he had accidentally chosen Harp Inlet, the right horse for the fifth race. His prize? A cool $27,000.
Such moments of magic — or addictive dopamine hits, depending on your perspective — have been drawing spectators to the “Big A” for 132 years, though the crowds have shrunk since off-site betting was legalized in 1971.
Founded in 1894 by the Queens County Jockey Club, the venue owes its name to the Ridgewood Aqueduct, which carried water from eastern Long Island to a nearby reservoir. Its arrival wasn’t very auspicious: A glut of grandstands were being built across Brooklyn and Queens, and Aqueduct was initially an “outlaw track,” a runt of the city’s litter, shorter than the minimum official length of one mile. The course encircled a plot of farm crops, and spectators stood on wooden boards so they wouldn’t sink into the mud.
Yet the next year, a wealthy tugboat captain provided ongoing funding for a headline-grabbing race, the Carter Handicap, positioning Aqueduct for success. Its appeal held until 1956, when the track closed for a major renovation; in 1959, the AP hailed the upgraded facility as the “most modern and luxurious” in the world.
During its golden age in the 1960s and early 70s, Aqueduct was the people’s racetrack, accessible but still prestigious. Secretariat, the Triple Crown winner who inspired a beloved 2010 Disney movie, won his first race here in 1972, and returned at the end of his 16-month career for a sendoff from 30,000 fans.
But off-site betting, also known as simulcasting, heralded the end of an era. While the racetrack remained a local hub in the 80s — its parking lot frequently hosted a large flea market — attendance steadily declined and a multi-level casino, Resorts World, opened next door in 2011, cannibalizing part of the old grandstand.
“If you came to this track on a regular day, you’d be lucky if you saw 50 people,” said John, 77, from the Bronx, a lifelong enthusiast who now usually bets on his phone.
Even so, like the 7,000 other attendees on Sunday, he wanted to witness the last race in person. For a brief spell, the beleaguered, trash-littered temple to horse racing was transformed into one of the hottest tickets in New York City. The track: fast. Turf: firm. Stylish twenty-somethings peppered veteran gamblers about their predictions; parents lifted their young children up to see the muscular horses trot by as white-haired men muttered at their betting cards, their cigar smoke wafting up, up, toward the low-flying planes. Shouts rang out — “Come on, baby! One last time!” and “Ocho, ocho!” Photographers scurried to and fro. As the clock ticked near 5:45 p.m., the improbable crowd tilted into pandemonium.
Then, in the amount of time it takes a cloud of dust to settle, it was over. The concourse quickly cleared. Inside, a clump of entranced visitors continued to gaze into the simulcast screens, oblivious to the employees sweeping up mounds of discarded tickets around them.
“It’s hard to leave Aqueduct because we’ve won a lot of races here, and had so much fun doing it,” said Linda Rice, 62, the New York Racing Association’s leading trainer for last year. “It’s hard to believe that we are walking away.”
Aqueduct’s future remains uncertain. New York’s downstate races and training sessions will move to Belmont Park, the recipient of a $455 million upgrade that will allow it to hold events during the colder months, previously Aqueduct’s domain.
Meanwhile, Aqueduct — which once hosted Pope John Paul II in the 70s and later served as a Covid vaccination hub during the pandemic — will prepare to wear yet another proverbial hat. Though its doors will be open for simulcasting through September, the state is set to assume control of the property and leverage it to construct affordable housing.
That project is still in its early stages. The two state agencies leading the redevelopment — Empire State Development (ESD) and the Franchise Oversight Board (FOB) — must first complete a community plan for how the site should be used based on local outreach, which kicked off in May, before searching for potential developers.
Heading for the exit, many spectators said they planned to visit the new-look Belmont, which sits just outside the borough’s eastern border. In a statement, the Queens Chamber of Commerce called Aqueduct an “enduring part of Queens’ identity,” but trumpeted an “exciting new chapter” that includes Belmont, two casinos, and the Etihad Park soccer stadium.
But not everyone was ready to move on. “I wished they would have stood open, so the new generation could enjoy it like the old did,” said John Malone, 56, of Middle Village, with mild-mannered melancholy, as he filtered out with Joey and Bean. “Aqueduct was the working man’s track. Belmont’s not the same, especially since they knocked it down and redid it.”
“It was local,” he concluded. “You’re not gonna find places like this no more.”
See more photos from the racetrack’s final event below!
