Connell Park Raceway in
Woodstock will be celebrating an anniversary of sorts this year when its hosts it’s
only card of harness racing this Friday, August 2, 2013.
It will be the 45th
year at the current location in Connell Park, which was named after one of
Woodstock’s most famous citizens, Charles Connell, who was an MLA for Carleton
County from 1846-1867 and in 1859, was appointed to the position of Postmaster
General.
However, the
picturesque track in Connell Park was not the first location for horse racing
in Woodstock.
While many believe that
Island Park (which was also known as the Parlor Track) was the original place -
which was located in the heart of the Saint John River between Woodstock and
Grafton - that is actually not the case.
In 1878, the Carleton
County Agricultural Society purchased a small piece of property that
constituted what was part of the site where the old Valley Railway Station
would later stand - at the end of Broadway Street in Lower Woodstock - to hold
the annual Exhibition. (The agricultural
exhibition had its origins on the grounds of the old Court House in Upper
Woodstock beginning in 1852)
An additional 14 acres
adjoining the future Valley Railway Station location was purchased and the foundation
was laid for a harness racing track that was known as the Woodstock Trotting
Park.
The old Woodstock
Trotting Parks site is currently occupied by a lumber yard located on Phillips
Drive (off of Charles Street) which ends where the homestretch would have began
and leads onto the current Sentier NB Trail.
The homestretch was where the CN rail tracks were laid. Town veterans used to say that each time the
train came up the track; it would “steam right up the old homestretch.”
On July 1, 1881 the first
real horse race took place. There were
three races that day and the final race was for Open trotters, best three out
of five one-mile heats. There were four
horses from Woodstock entered and after two of the horses were disqualified for
false starts, a horse named Bright trotted flawlessly, winning three straight
heats in 2:40 – 2:40 ¼ - 2:41.
While race meets were
sporadic over the years, by 1904, the Exhibition finally established itself as
an annual event with harness racing as a co-existing feature.
Over the next eight
years the Carleton County Agricultural Society continued to hold its Exhibition
and harness racing. However, in 1912
they were forced to sell the property with the laying of the Valley Railway and
the erection of the Valley Railway Station.
The track record would forever be held by Silk Patchen, who paced in
2:13 ¼ in 1909.
The Carleton County
Agricultural Society then purchased 18 acres on Smiths Flats, located down the
River Road in Woodstock. A racetrack was
surveyed and preparations were made to build a new Exhibition Park complete
with new Exhibition buildings and a grandstand.
But with the onset of the First World War in 1914, efforts to complete
the project were postponed and later cancelled, though local recreational horse
racing continued to take place at that location through the war years.
* * * * *
Island Park was a
unique 70-acre island that had a long history of being a campground and a base
for salmon fishing for the Maliseet peoples and later as fertile farm lands in
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
By 1905, it was in the
hands of a local farmer by the name of Charles Rogers and he had built an
approach from the main bridge to the island.
For the first time it was accessible by means other than the use of a
boat.
In 1909, it was
purchased by the Connell estate with the idea of forming it into a free public
park for the citizens of Woodstock, complete with a grandstand, baseball
diamond, picnic area and other recreational amenities including a miniature
railway where you could ride the train at one time for just a nickel.
The Carleton County
Agricultural Society ended up leasing the central part of the island for their
Exhibitions and harness racing in 1918 for the perpetual annual cost of $1.
It was reported that it
cost $50,000 to construct the track and all of the Exhibition buildings. The late Henry DeWitt and Bob Hamilton
built the racetrack that was reputed “…to
be the best this side of Springfield, Mass.
The grandstand which is capable of seating two thousand people has been
erected. One of the features of this
grandstand is the fact that from it the hoofs of every horse can be seen all
the way round the track.”
When Island Park first
opened for harness racing on August 19, 1919, it was said that it was “the only racetrack in the Maritime Provinces
with the regulation width of sixty-five feet in the homestretch. It had been well named by the horsemen of the
Province, the Parlor Track.”
During the first meet,
the first race in Maritime harness racing history for a purse of $1,000 was
held. It was the beginning of an era when
harness racing was thriving and driving clubs in Atlantic Canada and Maine
boasted of “community-owned” horses.
Many of these cities spent significant amounts of money to import pacing
stars to take a run at track records or rival community horses. During that time driving clubs flourished and
these “community-owned” horses were a civic boast.
The Woodstock Driving Club was the
first to usher in this new era when they went to the United States and
purchased the champion three-year-old
pacing stallion on a half-mile track, Oro Fino p.3,2:03 ¼. The next year, on July 13, 1920, Oro Fino
lowered the track record at Island Park to 2:11. That record only lasted a year until Canadian
Racing Hall of Fame horse, John R Braden, invaded the Maritimes from Presque
Isle, Maine.
Hometown hero Earle Avery, who went on
to have a Hall of Fame racing career of his own in the United States, got his
official start in the sport at Island Park.
Twice he held the track record, the first being with Budwenger in 2:05 ¼
on July 31, 1936. He then broke that
record two years later on July 15, 1938 with Ray Henley in 2:05, a record that would
stand for over 28 years.
The only time there was
no horse racing was during the Second World War from 1939-1946 when soldiers of
the Carleton York Regiment and the North Shore Regiment lived on the
island. In fact, many of the provincial agricultural
fairs had their grounds taken over by the military including Fredericton.
Island Park continued
to host harness racing up until 1967 when the island was completely submerged
by the construction of the Mactaquac dam.
The final track record
of 2:04.4 was set on August 4, 1966 by Comte Richelieu, who was campaigned by
the late Milton Downey of Saint John.
Comte Richelieu won the first of a two-heat $2,500 Maritime Invitational
Pace over Borderview Roy (who won the second heat in 2:07.4), Starburn,
Senators Sis, J Scotch Hal, Little Major, Borderview Bob Lee and Scotch
Maplecroft.
Less than two years
later Island Park was under water.
* * * * *
Connell Park Raceway
opened at its current location on July 25, 1968. The following appeared in the weekly
newspaper, The Bugle, shortly after the track held its first Old Home Week race
meet.
“The official opening of the new Connell Park was held on Thursday,
August 1. If there is a single event that has brought big crowds to Old Home
Week, it’s the grand and noble past-time of
harness racing. This week the Monday and Thursday evening cards will have an
added impact as they will be staged in the spanking new raceway. Sure there
will be a nostalgic ache in a lot of hearts at the thought of the famed “Parlor Track” lying under a mantle of
water down in the river. The Island’s Parlor Track brought a lot
of thrills to race-goers here and it served the community so well over so many
years.”
The Woodstock Driving
Club, which was established in 1914 (or thereabouts) by Dewitt and Hamilton, continues
to be the force that still drives the sport in the Woodstock area.
 | |
| WOODSTOCK DRIVING CLUB at Island Park in 1920 |
* * * * *
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