CHAPTER I 



THE REVIVAL OF RACING AT 

 JEROME PARK 



Think when we talk of horses, that you see them 

 Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth. 

 Henry Vj Prologue. 



WITH the revival of racing In the East, following 

 the close of the Civil War, Jerome Park be- 

 came at once the headquarters of sport and the Mecca 

 of fashion. A race day furnished a brilliant spectacle 

 as the gay four-in-hands swung through Central Park, 

 thence to Jerome Avenue, and along the 



A Brilliant iji^c-bordered lane to the "Members' Gate" 

 Kjathering 



in stately procession and magnificence of 



equipage which, according to the newspapers of the 

 time, "illustrated the triumph of civilization." 



At the foot of the Club-house "Bluff" the drags were 

 "parked," the horses unhitched, and refreshments 

 served on the drags from which New York's fairest 

 daughters viewed the racing. There was visiting from 

 drag to drag, as on an evening at the opera among the 

 boxes. Then, before the principal race of the day, the 



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