| Settlers from Britain who brought horses and | | | | More tracks opened as many and various state |
| horse racing with them to the American New | | | | legislatures promised to sanction pari-mutuel |
| World, with the earliest race track laid out on | | | | betting in exchange for a percentage of the funds |
| Long Island as early as 1665. While the sport | | | | wagered. At the end of World War I, prosperity |
| became a much acclaimed local activity, the | | | | and great horses like Man o' War brought |
| progression of organized racing did not arrive until | | | | spectators flocking to horse racing tracks. The |
| after the Civil War. (The American Stud Book | | | | sport prospered until World War II, declined in |
| was started in 1868.) For the next few decades, | | | | popularity during the 1950s and 1960s, then |
| with the prompt rise of an industrial economy, | | | | enjoyed a resurgence in the 1970s triggered by |
| betting on racehorses, and therefore horse racing | | | | the immense popularity of great horses such as |
| itself, grew explosively; by 1890, 314 tracks were | | | | Secretariat, Seattle Slew, and Affirmed, each |
| operational across the country. | | | | winners of the American Triple Crown--the |
| The breakneck growth of the sport without any | | | | Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont |
| predominant governing authority led to the | | | | Stakes. During the late 1980s, another significant |
| domination of countless tracks by criminal | | | | decline occurred, however. |
| elements. In 1894 the nation's most respected | | | | Thoroughbred tracks exist in about half the |
| track and stable owners met in New York to | | | | states. Public engagement in the sport focuses |
| form an American Jockey Club, modelled on the | | | | primarily on major Thoroughbred races such as |
| English version, which soon ruled racing with an | | | | the American Triple Crown and the Breeder's Cup |
| iron hand and eliminated much of the corruption. | | | | races (begun in 1984), which offer purses of up |
| In the early 1900s, however, racing in the United | | | | to about $1,000,000. State racing commissions |
| States was almost wiped out by antigambling | | | | have sole authority to license participants and |
| feeling that led almost all states to ban | | | | administer racing dates, while sharing the |
| bookmaking. By 1908 the number of tracks had | | | | appointment of racing officials and the supervision |
| plummeted to just 25. That same year, however, | | | | of racing rules with the Jockey Club. The Jockey |
| the installation of pari-mutuel betting for the | | | | Club retains authority over the breeding of |
| Kentucky Derby signalled a reversal for the sport. | | | | Thoroughbreds. |