The inaugural running took place on August 6, 1927 and was won Cheops, a three-year-old brown colt owned by the very prominent Rancocas Stable.
In 1943 government wartime restrictions meant the race had to be hosted that year by the Belmont Park racetrack in Elmont, New York.
[1] During the July 26, 1937 racing program that included the American Legion Handicap, tragedy struck the Saratoga facilities when, during a severe electrical storm, a bolt of lightning killed one horse and knocked eight others unconscious.
The lightning then hit a stall killing the two-year-old filly Gino Vive belonging to Willis Sharpe Kilmer.
[2] The 1938 race was won by Alfred G. Vanderbilt Jr.'s Airflame whose winning time broke an eighteen-year-old track record.