Hialeah Park Race Track

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Hialeah Park Race Track
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Hialeah Park in 1925
Location:	Hialeah, Florida
Added to NRHP:	March 5, 1979

The Hialeah Park Race Track (also known as the Miami Jockey Club or Hialeah Race Track or Hialeah Park) is a historic site in Hialeah, Florida. It is located at East 4th Avenue. On March 5, 1979, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. Another listing for it was added in 1988.

[edit] History

The Hialeah Park Race Track is one of the oldest existing recreational facilities in southern Florida. Originally opened in 1921 by the famous aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss and his partner James Bright, in 1925 the Miami Jockey Club launched Hialeah's race track on January 25, 1925. The facility was severely damaged by a 1926 hurricane and in 1930 was sold to the wealthy Philadelphia horseman Joseph E. Widener. With renowned Kentucky horseman Col. Edward R. Bradley as an investor, Widener hired architect Lester W. Geisler to design a complete new grandstand and Renaissance Revival clubhouse facilities along with landscaped gardens of native flora and fauna and a lake in the infield that Widener stocked with flamingos. Hailed as one of the most beautiful racetracks in the world, Hialeah Park officially opened on January 14, 1932. It became so famous for its flocks of flamingos that it has been officially designated a sanctuary for the American Flamingo by the Audubon Society.

Among the races the track hosted was the appropriately named Flamingo Stakes, an important stepping stone to the Kentucky Derby for 3-year-old horses, and the once prestigious Widener Handicap, a major race for horses four years and older that was the East Coast counterpart to the Santa Anita Handicap in California. The horse-racing movie Let It Ride, with Richard Dreyfuss, Terri Garr, and Jennifer Tilly, had most of its principal film photography shot at Hialeah Park in 1987.

Hialeah Park Racetrack was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 2, 1979. On January 12, 1988, the property was determined eligible for designation as a National Historic Landmark by the Secretary of the Interior. Owner John Brunetti closed Hialeah Park to the public in 2001. Its facilities remain intact except for the stables which was demolished early 2007. The filly Cheeky Miss won the last race ever run at Hialeah on May 22, 2001. Since closing, citizens of Hialeah have created an organization called Citizens to Save Hialeah Park.link title The mission of Citizens to Save Hialeah Park is the historic preservation of Hialeah Park Race Track. According to the group, "The Park was once the most beautiful race track in the world, it marks the beginnings of the city of Hialeah and its founders, features a unique central park area, and is a symbolic resting place for the horses that raced there and the millions of people who once cheered from the clubhouse and grandstand. Hialeah Park is the city’s most evident and only historical link with the rest of the nation. It deserves nothing less than to be completely restored and preserved."^{[cite this quote]}