Produce Stakes (USA)

This article is about the United States Thoroughbred horse race. For England's Produce Stakes for Greyhounds, see British Breeders Stakes.
Produce Stakes
Discontinued stakes race
LocationBrighton Beach Race Course, Brighton Beach, New York,
United States
Inaugurated1902
Race typeThoroughbred - Flat racing
Race information
Distance6 furlongs
SurfaceDirt
Trackleft-handed
QualificationTwo-year-old colts & geldings

The Produce Stakes was an American Thoroughbred racing event run in two divisions from 1902 thru 1907 at Brighton Beach Race Course at Brighton Beach, New York.

One of the more valuable races for two-year-olds in the United States, there was a division for fillies and another for colts and geldings.[1]

The race was short lived when the entire United States horse racing and breeding industry was thrown into massive uncertainty as a result of the June 11, 1908 action by the Republican controlled New York Legislature under Governor Charles Evans Hughes which passed the Hart-Agnew anti-betting legislation.[2] After a 1911 amendment to the law that would limit the liability of owners and directors was defeated in the Legislature, every racetrack in New York State shut down with wide-ranging effects throughout the entire country.[3] Owners whose horses of racing age had nowhere to go began shipping them and their trainers to England and France.[4] Many ended their racing careers there, and a number remained to become an important part of the European horse breeding industry. Thoroughbred Times reported that more than 1,500 American horses were sent overseas between 1908 and 1913 and that of them, at least 24 were either past, present, or future Champions.[5]

Scheduled to be run on September 28, 1908, the Brighton Beach racetrack's financial problems resulted in the Produce Stakes being canceled.[6] No longer financially viable, Thoroughbred racing was never held again at that track.[7]

  1. ^ "Condensed History of the Produce Stakes". Daily Racing Form at University of Kentucky Archives. 1907-09-29. Retrieved 2020-05-16.
  2. ^ "Penalties in the New York Bills". Daily Racing Form at University of Kentucky Archives. 1908-01-18. Retrieved 2018-10-26.
  3. ^ "Race Track Bill Defeated In Senate; Measure Modifying Directors' Liability for Gambling Fails of Passage". The New York Times. July 14, 1911. Retrieved September 2, 2017 – via NYTimes.com.
  4. ^ "Losses To The Breeding Industry". Daily Racing Form at University of Kentucky Archives. 1910-02-13. Retrieved 2019-01-01.
  5. ^ Thoroughbred Times - Racing Through the Century 1911-1920 Archived July 19, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  6. ^ "Important Stakes Dates". Daily Racing Form at University of Kentucky Archives. 1908-09-01. Retrieved 2021-12-23.
  7. ^ "Brighton Beach Race Course". The Keeneland Library. 2021-12-24. Retrieved 2021-12-24.