'All Aqueduct Needs is a Power Wash and a Paint Job': A Day at the Big A, While It's Still Here

The writing is on the wall for Aqueduct Racetrack.

There has been no official announcement, but the New York Racing Association has made clear with its plans to 'winterize' Belmont Park that Aqueduct, New York's stalwart winter racing home for decades, is on borrowed time. And while the logic of continuing to operate two racetracks just nine miles apart is undeniably questionable, don't let anyone fool you into thinking that nothing of value will be lost or that no one will mourn when Aqueduct becomes the latest American racing staple to bite the dust.

Opened all the way back in 1894 during a golden era when racetracks were popping up all over New York City, Aqueduct has managed to outlive them all but Belmont. The track was humbly named after a nearby conduit owned by the Brooklyn Water Works that delivered water to New York City from the Hempstead Plain. Over the years, fans have packed the Big A, as it was so nicknamed after its last major renovation project in 1959, to see the great Secretariat's retirement ceremony, the second edition of a fledgling endeavor called the Breeders' Cup, multiple Triple Crown winners, even a Pope, when John Paul II led a 75,000-strong mass on a picture-perfect autumn day in 1995.

Most importantly, though, Aqueduct has long served as New York's blue-collar racetrack. Saratoga is the crown jewel of the state's racing schedule, the party destination for fans where NYRA makes the money to fund the rest of the year's operations. Belmont has the allure of the Belmont Stakes, which, if there is a Triple Crown on the line, provides the most exciting day in our sport. It also has the distinction of housing the country's biggest racetrack and the added benefit of running during the city's most pleasant weather months.

Aqueduct, on the other hand, mostly races in the freezing cold. Situated near Jamaica Bay and John F. Kennedy airport, the winds often make conditions even more brutal. Purse money drops. The throngs of fans and festive summer atmosphere of Saratoga could not be further away, both on the calendar and in the psyche.

But what the Aqueduct meet lacks in glamour, it makes up for in opportunity when it comes to New York's proletarian horsemen. The big barns and more decorated riders all understandably head south, mostly to Gulfstream Park in Florida, for the winter. If you can brave the harsh conditions at Aqueduct, you can compete and win races, certainly much more frequently than when Chad Brown, Todd Pletcher, Irad Ortiz, Jr., et al return north and resume their domination in the spring.

Aqueduct racing is the rough equivalent to the National Football League's practice squad–a bunch of players who rarely get their chance on the big stage, but who can serve a critical role to the greater product and earn a decent paycheck.

“As a lower-level owner, I look forward to the winter racing,” said Aron Yagoda, who races mostly in the claiming game in New York. “It's been a part of my culture and become our winter home. It's actually our longest-running stretch of the circuit that we have in New York, and a part of that is going to go away when Aqueduct goes away. Aqueduct doesn't just have the blue-collar horses, it has the blue-collar workers there and it's more of a die-hard crowd. It's going to be sorely missed, at least for me.”

Though only separated by nine miles as the crow flies, the crowd and vibe at Aqueduct differ from the one at Belmont. The Big A is the city's track, a concrete plant residing in the working-class Queens neighborhood of Ozone Park, accessible via a $2.75 subway ride on the A express train. Belmont more resembles a giant park, lies outside of the city limits and is associated more closely with Long Island, accessible only by car or part-time via the Long Island Rail Road.

“They're the die-hard racing fans [at Aqueduct],” said Yagoda. “It's one of the only tracks in the country you can take a subway to. You'll see a lot of the Belmont fans at Aqueduct, but you don't see a lot of the Aqueduct fans at Belmont.”

Yagoda has been racing horses in New York for over 30 years and has attended Aqueduct since he was a baby. Spending a day at the track has been in his family for generations.

“My grandfather had a box–D17–and I still watch races from that box whenever I run a horse,” he said. “When Aqueduct closes, part of my childhood and some of my great racing memories are going to close with it.”

It's not all bad for fans of the Big A, however. Though the track's story is entering its final chapter, there still is and will be some spectacular racing at Aqueduct for several years to come. The massive renovation that began this summer at Belmont, which forced its Fall Championship Meet to be moved to Aqueduct and re-branded as Belmont at the Big A, will necessitate the same move in the fall of 2023. Aqueduct will be set to have another moment in the sun like it did this year, hosting more Grade I races than it ever has and attracting bigger crowds in refreshingly favorable weather.

That's the environment that brought me out to the Big A one Saturday this October, shamefully my first pilgrimage on that familiar A-train ride since before the pandemic.

I met up with two of my oldest racetrack friends, Frank Henry, 35, who I went to high school with, and Sean Smith, 40, who I met through Frank dozens of track hangouts ago. As longtime Aqueduct racegoers, we knew we had to take advantage of seeing major Grade I racing at our maligned old light blue-painted friend under clear skies and comfortable fall conditions.

We posted up in our usual spot, at the far end of the second-floor grandstand, just before the clubhouse turn, among a variety of characters, mostly of West Indian and Caribbean descent. I didn't know the majority of them, but the sights, sounds and, yes, smells of the section were as comforting as a warm, increasingly tattered hoodie you bring out of the closet every winter. Slow-swaying reggae music blared from a speaker.

“This is the real Aqueduct,” Henry said.

Without any prompting, the conversation quickly turned to the future of the place where we used to watch simulcasts of Saratoga before we'd ever made it through the gates of the Spa.

“All Aqueduct needs is a power wash and a paint job,” said Smith, who recently moved to Ozone Park. “You have two turf courses, finally have a dirt main track [for the winter], I don't get it. I finally get a track close to my house and they want to take it away from me.”

After watching eventual GI Breeders' Cup Sprint hero Elite Power (Curlin) cruise to a victory in the GII Vosburgh S., next up was the GI Joe Hirsch Turf Invitational S. Seeing those top-class horses run in historic Belmont-held races, I briefly had to remind myself where I was. As the horses came through the stretch for the first time in the three-turn, 1 1/2-mile Hirsch, I quickly remembered, as one particularly loud fan started feverishly rooting for the leader, unaware the field had another lap to go. The crowd had a great laugh at his expense, savoring like a sweet nectar the moment when he realized they were going around again.

Following a stunning 47-1 upset in the GIII Matron S. that killed any multi-race tickets we played, I went down to the first-floor bar to grab consolation beers for the crew. Naturally, there was a stereotypical animated New Yorker bragging through a heavy Brooklyn accent about having the winning horse. True to form, within a few sentences, he was off on another topic and making sure to tell everybody where he's from.

“Go-Go Gomez for [John] Terranova!” he shouted to no one in particular, getting the winning trainer right but the jockey (Eric Cancel) wrong. “Hundred-dollar horse. My boy hit the double. I might go talk to [the jockeys]. I like to go talk to them sometimes because I'm from Brooklyn. I get pictures with [Javier] Castellano. People say, 'What the [expletive] is the matter with you?' I say I'm from New York.”

Before I headed back upstairs, I caught a hopeful glimpse of racing's future. Standing out amongst the hardened Aqueduct regulars was a group of young people, likely in their early 20s, decked out in suits and dresses. The kind of kids you usually only spot at Saratoga, taking in a day of racing at the least glamorous, but most accessible track in the city.

So how much longer does Aqueduct realistically have before downstate racing in New York becomes a one-track circuit, the same way Gulfstream has slowly subsumed the racing at Hialeah and Calder in South Florida?

“I still think we'll be at Aqueduct for at least four or five more years,” said Yagoda, a New York Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association board member. “They put the second turf course back in, which they used to have until 1976 when they got rid of one of them to put in the inner dirt track. They went back to one main track, so I really think that they're going to have racing at Aqueduct for quite a while longer.”

No, it's not Belmont and it's sure as hell not Saratoga. There are legitimate reasons why Aqueduct is mostly an afterthought. It's outdated, especially when compared to the Resorts World casino next door. It's cold. The racing quality is generally spotty.

But Aqueduct provides a raw, authentic slice of New York City, the kind that the city's ever-increasing gentrification is making harder and harder to find. That alone is worth holding onto. And rest assured, all us die-hards will hold onto it, for however long we can.