Jerome Park Racetrack

The racetrack opened in 1866 in the northwest part of Fordham, Westchester County (now in the Bronx), New York.

Jerome Park Racetrack was also the home to the Champagne Stakes from its inaugural running in 1867 through 1889 and the Ladies Handicap, created in 1868 and which today is run at Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens and is the oldest stakes race in the United States exclusively for fillies and mares.

On May 13 of that year, the track was the site of the first outdoor polo match ever held in the United States.

As attested by Sir Winston Churchill in his biography of his father, Lord Randolph Churchill was never in America before his marriage, and the couple actually met in August 1873 at a ball on board the Imperial Russian cruiser "Ariadne" while it was moored at Cowes on the Isle of Wight.

[3] The track closed on October 4, 1894 to make way for the Jerome Park Reservoir that was needed for the metropolitan New York City water supply system.