The Islip Handicap was an American Thoroughbred horse race held annually from 1899 through 1907 at New York's Brighton Beach Race Course and then for a final time in 1910 with a drastically reduced purse at

Empire City Race Track Yonkers Raceway & Empire City Casino, founded in 1899 as the Empire City Race Track, is a one-half-mile standardbred harness racing dirt track and slots racino located at the intersection of Central Park Avenue and Yonkers Avenue in Yonkers, New Y ...

Yonkers, New York Yonkers () is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States. Developed along the Hudson River, it is the third most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City and Buffalo. The population of Yonkers was 211,569 as enu ...

. A race for horses age three and older, it was contested on dirt over a distance of one mile for the first two runnings then at a mile and one-eighth for the remainder.

Historical notes

The filly

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won the 1899 inaugural running of the Islip Handicap. She would go on to earn recognition as that year's

American Horse of the Year The American Award for Horse of the Year, one of the Eclipse Awards, is the highest honor given in American thoroughbred horse racing. Because Thoroughbred horse racing in the United States has no governing body to sanction the various awards, "Hor ...

and induction into the U. S. Racing Hall of Fame in 1965. In winning the 1902 edition, Bonnibert broke the Brighton Beach track record for the mile and one-eighth with a time of 1:51 flat.

End of a race and of a racetrack

The Brighton Beach Race Course prospered until 1908 when the New York Legislature passed the

Hart–Agnew Law The Hart–Agnew Law was an anti-gambling bill passed into law by the Legislature of the State of New York on June 11, 1908. It was an amalgam of bills enacted as Chapter 506 and 507 which were sponsored by conservative Assemblyman Merwin K. Hart ...

banning gambling in

New York State New York, officially the State of New York, is a state in the Northeastern United States. It is often called New York State to distinguish it from its largest city, New York City. With a total area of , New York is the 27th-largest U.S. stat ...

Motor racing Motorsport, motorsports or motor sport is a global term used to encompass the group of competitive sporting events which primarily involve the use of motorized vehicles. The terminology can also be used to describe forms of competition of two ...

events were held at the facility in an attempt to keep the track from closing permanently but even after horse racing returned to New York it was too late to save the business. At the time it ceased horse racing operations, the Brighton Beach Race Course was the oldest horse track in steady use in the New York City area.

Records

Speed record: * 1:51.00 @ miles: Bonnibert (1902) (track tecord) Most wins: * No horse won this race more than once Most wins by a

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: * No jockey won this race more than once Most wins by a trainer: * 2 – Thomas Welsh (1901, 1902) Most wins by an owner: * 2 – Charles Fleischman's Sons

Winners

References

{{reflist 1899 establishments in New York City Discontinued horse races in New York (state) Open mile category horse races Recurring sporting events established in 1899 Recurring sporting events disestablished in 1911 Brighton Beach Race Course Empire City Race Track 1909 disestablishments in New York (state) Discontinued horse races in New York City