Newmarket Racecourse

K-125

Newmarket Racecourse, a one-mile oval built just north of here by 1793, was among the foremost tracks in the nation when horse racing was America's most popular sport. Races were significant social events that attracted competitors and spectators from great distances. Champions Sir Archy, Boston, and Planet raced at Newmarket, and prominent horseman William R. Johnson, known as the “Napoleon of the Turf,” based his stables here. Many of the track’s grooms, exercise riders, jockeys, and trainers were enslaved African Americans. During the Civil War, fighting took place near the racecourse on 18 June 1864 and 25 March 1865. The track declined after the war and ceased to exist by 1903.

Department of Historic Resources, 2018

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

North-Carolina Journal, 1 June 1795. Official Records of the War of the Rebellion 40, Part 2, p. 666; 42, Part 2, p. 178, 563, 584. Benjamin Henry Latrobe, The Journal of Latrobe (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1905). American Turf Register and Sporting Magazine, vol. 1, no. 1 (Sept. 1829). Porter’s Spirit of the Times, 30 May 1857. Wallace’s Monthly (June, Oct. 1877). Richmond Daily Dispatch, 28 Jan. 1854, 22 March 1877, 8 Feb. 1903, 12 April 1910, 30 Jan. 1916. Richmond Times, 16 Aug. 1900, 1 Dec. 1901. Norfolk Virginian, 16 July 1896. Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, 27 Sept. 1900, 15 May 1901, 22 Aug. 1902. Daily Racing Form, 23 Jan. 1923. Edward A. Wyatt, IV, “Newmarket of the Virginia Turf,” William and Mary Quarterly, 2d ser., vol. 17, no. 4 (Oct. 1937), 481-495. W.G.S., “Racing in Colonial Virginia,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 2, no. 3 (Jan. 1895): 293-305). John Hervey, Racing in America, 1665-1865 (New York: The Jockey Club, 1944). Julie A. Campbell, The Horse in Virginia: An Illustrated History (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2010). Virginia C. Johnson and Barbara Crookshanks, Virginia Horse Racing: Triumphs of the Turf (Charleston, SC: History Press, 2008). James G. Scott and Edward A. Wyatt, IV, Petersburg’s Story: A History (Petersburg, VA, 1960). A. Wilson Greene, Civil War Petersburg: Confederate City in the Crucible of War (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2006). “Planet,” National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame (https://www.racingmuseum.org/hall-of-fame/planet) “Sir Archy,” National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame (https://www.racingmuseum.org/hall-of-fame/sir-archy) “Boston,” National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame (https://www.racingmuseum.org/hall-of-fame/boston) http://www.petersburgproject.org/hare-house.html http://randomthoughtsonhistory.blogspot.com/2017/04/finding-petersburgs-new-market-race.html