Yonkers Raceway

Yonkers Raceway, today part of the Empire City Casino complex in New York, has been a landmark of American horse racing for more than a century. It opened on September 4, 1899, as the Empire City Race Track, created by William H. Clark’s Empire City Trotting Club. Roughly 12,000 fans came on opening day to watch harness horses circle its half-mile oval. After Clark’s death in 1900 the track lay mostly dormant until 1907, when grocery magnate James Butler bought it and converted the surface for thoroughbred racing. Under Butler, Empire City hosted some of the sport’s brightest stars—most famously Seabiscuit, who captured the Scarsdale Handicap in 1936 and the Butler Handicap in 1937.

The flat-racing era ended in 1942 when the track returned to its trotting roots. With pari-mutuel wagering legalized in New York two years earlier, harness racing boomed, and Empire City became one of the premier standardbred venues in the Northeast. In 1950 the Algam Corporation purchased the facility and formally rebranded it as Yonkers Raceway, a name soon synonymous with the sport. Through the 1950s and 1960s it drew huge crowds for prestigious events like the Yonkers Trot, one leg of the Trotting Triple Crown.

By the late twentieth century attendance waned and the grandstand aged, but a new chapter began when the Rooney family acquired the property in 1972. They invested steadily, even relocating the finish line in 1996 to lengthen the stretch and rebuilding sections of the plant the following year. In 2006 Yonkers embraced the “racino” model, adding thousands of video lottery terminals and becoming Empire City Casino at Yonkers Raceway. MGM Resorts International purchased the racetrack and casino in 2019 for $850 million, later selling the real estate to Vici Properties while continuing to operate the venue. Today Yonkers Raceway remains one of New York’s busiest harness tracks, blending more than 120 years of racing tradition with modern gaming entertainment.