Run in late June or early July, for most of its years at Sheepshead Bay the Great Trial Stakes was the most valuable race for two-year-olds during the track's summer meet.
It is such a rare feat for a two-year-old to earn Horse of the Year honors that from 1908 through 2018 it has been accomplished only four times: A July 1, 1908 Daily Racing Form article reported on the dominance of John Madden in this event who won this race seven times as the trainer and breeder plus he was the owner of five of those winners as well as a minority partner of 1903 winner Pulsus.
[4] On June 11, 1908, the Republican-controlled New York Legislature under Governor Charles Evans Hughes passed the Hart–Agnew anti-betting legislation.
[8] Recorded as the Executive Liability Act, the legislation made it possible for racetrack owners and members of its board of directors to be fined and imprisoned if anyone was found betting, even privately, anywhere on their premises.
After a 1911 amendment to the law to limit the liability of owners and directors was defeated,[9] every racetrack in New York State shut down.