Aurora Downs
   HOME
*





Aurora Downs
History Aurora Downs was a horse racing facility in Aurora, Illinois, that hosted thoroughbred racing and harness racing events as early as 1891. The Downs was originally a half-mile track named Aurora Driving Park, located north of Illinois Avenue and west of Lake Street in Aurora. The Park hosted many area events in addition to racing, including circuses, fairs, and the first powered airplane flight in Illinois on July 4, 1910, with an exhibition of the Wright brothers airplane. In 1922, a new one-mile track was built on the site of the newly constructed Exposition Park in North Aurora and renamed Aurora Downs. The famous Illinois Derby ran there from 1932 through 1938 before suspending the race for 23 years. A local newspaper reported more than 30,000 racing fans crowded the track in the height of the 1937 season. The Downs also hosted auto racing events in addition to horse racing. The Downs closed during World War II, then added a half-mile oval when it reopened again in 194 ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Horse Racing
Horse racing is an equestrian performance sport, typically involving two or more horses ridden by jockeys (or sometimes driven without riders) over a set distance for competition. It is one of the most ancient of all sports, as its basic premise – to identify which of two or more horses is the fastest over a set course or distance – has been mostly unchanged since at least classical antiquity. Horse races vary widely in format, and many countries have developed their own particular traditions around the sport. Variations include restricting races to particular breeds, running over obstacles, running over different distances, running on different track surfaces, and running in different gaits. In some races, horses are assigned different weights to carry to reflect differences in ability, a process known as handicapping. While horses are sometimes raced purely for sport, a major part of horse racing's interest and economic importance is in the gambling associated with ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Thoroughbred Racing
Thoroughbred racing is a sport and industry involving the racing of Thoroughbred horses. It is governed by different national bodies. There are two forms of the sport – flat racing and jump racing, the latter known as National Hunt racing in the UK and steeplechasing in the US. Jump racing can be further divided into hurdling and steeplechasing. Ownership and training of racehorses Traditionally, racehorses have been owned by wealthy individuals. It has become increasingly common in the last few decades for horses to be owned by syndicates or partnerships. Notable examples include the 2005 Epsom Derby winner Motivator, owned by the Royal Ascot Racing Club, 2003 Kentucky Derby winner Funny Cide, owned by a group of 10 partners organized as Sackatoga Stable, and 2008 Kentucky Derby winner Big Brown, owned by IEAH stables, a horse racing hedgefund organization. Historically, most race horses have been bred and raced by their owners. Beginning after World War II, the commercia ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Harness Racing
Harness racing is a form of horse racing in which the horses race at a specific gait (a trot or a pace). They usually pull a two-wheeled cart called a sulky, or spider, or chariot occupied by a driver. In Europe, and less frequently in Australia and New Zealand, races with jockeys riding directly on saddled trotters ( in French) are also conducted. Breeds In North America, harness races are restricted to Standardbred horses, although European racehorses may also be French Trotters or Russian Trotters, or have mixed ancestry with lineages from multiple breeds. Orlov Trotters race separately in Russia. The light cold-blooded Coldblood trotters and Finnhorses race separately in Finland, Norway and Sweden. Standardbreds are so named because in the early years of the Standardbred stud book, only horses who could trot or pace a mile in a ''standard'' time (or whose progeny could do so) of no more than 2 minutes, 30 seconds were admitted to the book. The horses have proportionally ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Illinois Derby
The Illinois Derby is a race for Thoroughbred horses for three year olds run over a distance of one and one-eighth miles (9 furlongs) on the dirt at Hawthorne Race Course in Stickney/Cicero, Illinois, just west of Chicago in early April each year. The event was first run in 1923 at the Hawthorne Race Course. The purse is $250,000. History The race was named in honor of the home state in which it was run, the state of Illinois. The inaugural running of the race took place at Hawthorne in 1923 and was won by In Memoriam, the 3 year-old champion with Zev that year. The race was then run at Sportsman's Park from 1924 through 1931. It moved to Aurora Downs racetrack in 1932 and was run there until 1938. In 1939 the race went on hiatus until through 1962. Then the race was revived at Sportsman's Park Racetrack again in 1963 where it remained through its 2002 running. The race was not run 1939-1962 and 1970-1971. The race was first graded in 1973 when the grading system started as a ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Auto Racing
Auto racing (also known as car racing, motor racing, or automobile racing) is a motorsport involving the racing of automobiles for competition. Auto racing has existed since the invention of the automobile. Races of various sorts were organised, with the first recorded as early as 1867. Many of the earliest events were effectively Classic trials, reliability trials, aimed at proving these new machines were a practical mode of transport, but soon became an important way for automobile makers to demonstrate their machines. By the 1930s, specialist racing cars had developed. There are now numerous different categories, each with different rules and regulations. History The first prearranged match race of two self-powered road vehicles over a prescribed route occurred at 4:30 A.M. on August 30, 1867, between Ashton-under-Lyne and Old Trafford, a distance of eight miles. It was won by the carriage of Isaac Watt Boulton. Internal combustion auto racing events began soon after ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, ma ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Maywood Park
Maywood Park was a horse racing venue located in Melrose Park, Illinois, United States, about 12 miles from downtown Chicago. It was used for harness racing. It had a capacity of 33,297 people and was built in 1946. The track was a half-mile oval. The track closed in 2015. The track, which had been in unincorporated Cook County, was located in Melrose Park. Demolition began in early 2019; the structures are to be replaced by an industrial and warehouse development. It was replaced by an Amazon distribution center in 2020. History The land that would house Maywood Park was purchased by Arthur T. Galt for $64,000 in 1922 (adjusted for inflation this was more than $968,000 in 2019). Per a 1953 United States Tax Court ruling: "In 1931 the property was leased to the Cook County Fair Association, which constructed a spectators' grandstand and a one-half mile dirt oval track for harness races. Its attempt to operate a county fair was unsuccessful, however, and in 1934 petitioner ej ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

United States Geological Survey
The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, and the natural hazards that threaten it. The organization's work spans the disciplines of biology, geography, geology, and hydrology. The USGS is a fact-finding research organization with no regulatory responsibility. The agency was founded on March 3, 1879. The USGS is a bureau of the United States Department of the Interior; it is that department's sole scientific agency. The USGS employs approximately 8,670 people and is headquartered in Reston, Virginia. The USGS also has major offices near Lakewood, Colorado, at the Denver Federal Center, and Menlo Park, California. The current motto of the USGS, in use since August 1997, is "science for a changing world". The agency's previous slogan, adopted on the occasion of its hundredt ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Chicago, Burlington And Quincy Railroad
The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad was a railroad that operated in the Midwestern United States. Commonly referred to as the Burlington Route, the Burlington, or as the Q, it operated extensive trackage in the states of Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and also in Texas through subsidiaries Colorado and Southern Railway, Fort Worth and Denver Railway, and Burlington-Rock Island Railroad. Its primary connections included Chicago, Minneapolis–Saint Paul, St. Louis, Kansas City, and Denver. Because of this extensive trackage in the midwest and mountain states, the railroad used the advertising slogans "Everywhere West", "Way of the ''Zephyrs''", and "The Way West". In 1967, it reported 19,565 million net ton-miles of revenue freight and 723 million passenger miles; corresponding totals for C&S were 1,100 and 10 and for FW&D were 1,466 and 13. At the end of the year, CB&Q operated 8,538 route-miles, C&S operated 708, and FW&D operated 13 ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Batavia, Illinois
Batavia () is a city mainly in Kane County and partly in DuPage County in the U.S. state of Illinois. Located in the Chicago metropolitan area, it was founded in 1833 and is the oldest city in Kane County. Per the 2020 census, the population was 26,098. During the latter part of the 19th century, Batavia, home to six American-style windmill manufacturing companies, became known as "The Windmill City." Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, a federal government-sponsored high-energy physics laboratory, where both the bottom quark and the top quark were first detected, is located just east of the city limits. Batavia is part of a vernacular region known as the Tri-City area, along with St. Charles and Geneva, all western suburbs of similar size and relative socioeconomic condition. cheetz, George H."Whence Siouxland?" ''Book Remarks'' ioux City Public Library May 1991. History Batavia was settled in 1833 by Christopher Payne and his family. Originally called Big Woods for th ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Defunct Horse Racing Venues In Illinois
Defunct (no longer in use or active) may refer to: * ''Defunct'' (video game), 2014 * Zombie process or defunct process, in Unix-like operating systems See also * * :Former entities * End-of-life product * Obsolescence Obsolescence is the state of being which occurs when an object, service, or practice is no longer maintained or required even though it may still be in good working order. It usually happens when something that is more efficient or less risky r ...
{{Disambiguation ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]