Pinehurst

Pinehurst Harness Track
… a short history

By the late 1800’s, early 1900’s, with a growing country hungry for professional and exciting entertainment, county and state fairs, wild west shows, traveling shows of all kinds was the rage. Likely inspired by the Columbian Exposition of 1893, which was designed by our own Frederick Law Olmsted, names like Buffalo Bill, Ringling Brothers, Annie Oakley, etc. answered the call. Especially from the New England to mid western states, the summers were full of these traveling shows playing to packed houses.

At the same time, just after the Civil War another sport was being introduced to America, harness racing. Being primarily a farming nation at the time and powered mostly by animals, especially horses, many farmers began to gather on weekends to race their horses against their neighbor’s horses, the same horses they plowed the fields with during the week.

Over time, this “friendly competition” developed into a sophisticated and big time sport called “harness racing”. The main venues in those early days went along with the state fairs and the purses for the winners began to grow as well. By the early 1900’s harness racing was becoming a big business, again, primarily from the mid west into New England. It was also decided that all harness race horses, regardless of what month they were born in would have January 1st as their birthday. As a result the most financially lucrative racing became, and remains today, the racing among 2 and 3 year old horses, whether they be the trotting or the pacing gaits.