About Us

This Page belongs to Cece Levy--Daughter of Roosevelt Raceway founder George M. Levy

She dedicates this page to her father

 

The Roosevelt Raceway Hall of Fame website is a non-profit for fun website dedicated to the Drivers, Trainers, Owners, Horses, Employees, Officials, and Journalists, that raced and worked at Roosevelt Raceway. If you would like to nominate someone please click here

 

We will be adding web pages as we go along. If anyone would like to submit a profile or pictures of your favorite driver, trainer or horse, please feel free to do so, please send them to info@rrtrotting.com

 

L-R Joe Goldstein (RR Publicity Director) His wife Helene and George Morton Levy

 

George Morton Levy was an astute businessman and harness racing enthusiast whose passion for the sport prompted him to gather a band of investors who, in 1939, embarked on creating Roosevelt Raceway.

 

Levy, a Freeport (NY)-based attorney who was one of the country’s most successful trial lawyers, created Roosevelt Raceway from a modest parcel of land and built it into harness racing’s American “boom track” in the 1950’s and 1960’s and branding itself the world capital of harness racing.

 

In 1939, Levy formed the Old Country Trotting Association, desirous to see the rural sport of harness racing garner more attention than just at the county fair level. He used his many talents to make his passion come to fruition.

 

Levy built his racetrack in Westbury, Long Island on the field where Charles Lindbergh began his historic trans-Atlantic flight to Paris. Levy thought that by virtue of Long Islanders love of horse sports, coupled with a large grandstand, he had the perfect venue for a new harness racing facility. He was right.

 

(George Morton Levy seatedwith friends)

 

However, Levy lacked the horses needed to run a proper meet. Thus, Opening Day – August 26, 1940 – he had only 27 horses to fill a program when 60 were needed. Fortunately, it rained hard that season and Levy was forced to keep his facility closed until Labor Day.

 

The Old Country Trotting Association thus had time enough to encourage horsemen to ship in from as far away as the Midwest to race at the new oval.

 

Levy’s dream finally came true and on September 2, 1940 – Roosevelt Raceway opened to an enthusiastic crowd of 4,584 patrons who wagered $40,734. During the first year, 75,175 customers wagered over $1.2 million during 27 nights of racing.

 

Despite the numbers, after the first three years of operation, Roosevelt Raceway was nearly a half-million dollars in the red. Levy even brought patrons in from the railroad stations via horse and buggy to guarantee grandstand attendees. “It was bleak,” he said. “You couldn’t get people to come out even if you bought their dinners and paid for their transportation.   

 

(Cece Levy posing with portrait of George Morton Levy) 

 

In 1943, due to wartime travel restrictions, Roosevelt shared a 35-day season with Buffalo, Saratoga, and Goshen’s Good Time Park at the old Empire City Thoroughbred track-(now Yonkers Raceway).

 

For the first time, Roosevelt Raceway realized a small profit. However, races were often delayed because of numerous false starts (sometimes, as many as 10-15 recalls a night). Always the innovator, Levy solved the problem in 1946 by introducing the mobile starting gate at a personal cost of $63,000.

 

It was an immediate success, and fans soon started coming out in droves to watch and wager on the races.

 

Roosevelt welcomed more than 1.1 million patrons in 1946 and steadily built its way toward average nightly attendance of nearly 20,000 fans.

 

The bucolic country racetrack was being stretched far beyond its capacity and, when attendance peaked at 35,048 in 1953, Levy decided it was time to map out a super track.

 

He purchased an adjacent tract of land and sought the skills of internationally-renowned architect Arthur Froehlich. Froehlich designed a palatial, $20-million; five-story building that took racing from the days of the wooden grandstand into the modern, metal-and-glass era.

 

Completed in 1957, the new facility offered trackside dining for 1,700 patrons, parking for 15,000 cars, an air conditioned grandstand, a state-of-the-art tote-board and room for up to 60,000 fans. For many years after the “new” track opened, attendance and betting records were broken with regularity.   

 

George Morton Levy did more for the sport of harness racing than any individual or group of individuals. In 1966, he was inducted into the Hall of fame of the Trotter at Goshen, N.Y.

 

A true pioneer of the sport, he is generally regarded as the father of night harness racing.

 

(Biography courtesy of the Levy family)