The race was created to honor Algernon Daingerfield, a Secretary of The Jockey Club for many years who had died on June 10, 1941.
[1][2] The inaugural running took place on October 25, 1941, at Empire City Race Track in Yonkers, New York.
The two-mile event was won by Marshall Field's Piping Rock and was run at a distance of two miles.
[3] In the 1950 edition of the Daingerfield Handicap, Canadian-born jockey Ted Atkinson rode Royal Castle to victory in a world record time of 3:30 4/5 for two and one-sixteenth miles on dirt.
It was won by a three-year-old colt named Guy with another Canadian-born jockey, Nick Wall, on board.