The racetrack was built by a group of prominent businessmen from the New York City area who formed the Coney Island Jockey Club in 1879.

[8][9] Today, both the Suburban and the Futurity are ongoing Graded stakes races held at the Belmont Park racetrack in Elmont on Long Island.

The Club replaced the Sheepshead Bay steeplechase course with a one-mile turf course, built inside the existing main dirt track.

A race for three-year-old horses, it was contested at a distance of a mile and an eighth and was won by Emory & Cotton's Dry Monopole in a time of 157.00.

[10] In 1908, the administration of Governor Charles Evans Hughes signed into law the Hart–Agnew bill that effectively banned all racetrack betting in the state of New York.

[15][16] In December 1919, what the Daily Racing Form called one of the most famous racetracks in the history of the American turf, was purchased for real estate development.

The Sheepshead Bay Speedway Corporation ran into financial difficulties following the death of its majority shareholder Harry Harkness in January 1919.