Suffolk Meadows
Encyclopedia
American Quarter Horse
The American Quarter Horse is an American breed of horse that excels at sprinting short distances. Its name came from its ability to outdistance other breeds of horses in races of a quarter mile or less; some individuals have been clocked at speeds up to 55 mph...
racing facility on Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
that operated during 1977 and 1986. The racetrack was situated on a 65 acre (0.2630459 km²) parcel located in Yaphank
Yaphank, New York
Yaphank is a census-designated place in Suffolk County, New York, United States. The population was 5,025 at the 2000 census.Yaphank is a community in the south part of the Town of Brookhaven...
northwest of the William Floyd Parkway
County Route 46 (Suffolk County, New York)
Suffolk County Road 46 is a major county road in eastern Suffolk County, New York. It runs north and south from County Route 75 in Smith Point County Park to New York State Route 25A near the border of Shoreham and Wading River...
interchange on the Long Island Expressway
Interstate 495 (New York)
Interstate 495 is an auxiliary Interstate Highway on Long Island in New York in the United States. The route extends for from the western portal of the Queens-Midtown Tunnel in the New York City borough of Manhattan to County Route 58 in Riverhead, Suffolk County...
.
The racetrack first opened in 1977 as Parr Meadows and closed following a 113 day meet after the bank defaulted on loans. Although the track was not built by developer Ron Parr, the Parr Organization assumed ownership after the original builder ran out of funds. In May 1986, horse racing briefly returned to Suffolk Meadows for an 86 day stint. The racetrack ceased operations on October 18, 1986.
On September 7, 1979, 18,000 attendees gathered at Parr Meadows for a ten hour concert featuring a number of the original performers from the Woodstock Festival
Woodstock Festival
Woodstock Music & Art Fair was a music festival, billed as "An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music". It was held at Max Yasgur's 600-acre dairy farm in the Catskills near the hamlet of White Lake in the town of Bethel, New York, from August 15 to August 18, 1969...
. Musical artists attending the tenth year reunion concert included Blondie Chaplin
Blondie Chaplin
Terence William 'Blondie' Chaplin is a musician from Durban, South Africa who first became known to international audiences through his brief stint in the early 1970s as a singer and guitarist for The Beach Boys...
, Canned Heat
Canned Heat
Canned Heat is a blues-rock/boogie rock band that formed in Los Angeles, California in 1965. The group has been noted for its own interpretations of blues material as well as for efforts to promote the interest in this type of music and its original artists...
, Country Joe McDonald
Country Joe McDonald
Country Joe McDonald is an American musician who was the lead singer of the 1960s psychedelic rock group Country Joe and the Fish.-Personal life:...
, John Sebastian
John Sebastian
John Benson Sebastian Jr. is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist and autoharpist. He is best known as a founder of The Lovin' Spoonful, a band inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000...
, Johnny Winter
Johnny Winter
John Dawson "Johnny" Winter III is an American blues guitarist, singer, and producer. Best known for his late 1960s and 1970s high-energy blues-rock albums and live performances, Winter also produced three Grammy Award-winning albums for blues legend Muddy Waters...
, Paul Butterfield
Paul Butterfield
Paul Butterfield was an American blues vocalist and harmonica player, who founded the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in the early 1960s and performed at the original Woodstock Festival...
, Rick Danko
Rick Danko
Richard Clare "Rick" Danko was a Canadian musician and singer, best known as a member of The Band.-Early years :...
and Stephen Stills
Stephen Stills
Stephen Arthur Stills is an American guitarist and singer/songwriter best known for his work with Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills & Nash . He has performed on a professional level in several other bands as well as maintaining a solo career at the same time...
. Many of the concertgoers arrived the day before, parking along William Floyd Parkway and camping out in the woods.
Suffolk Meadows has also been the site of competitions for the International Professional Rodeo Association and the Suffolk County Fair. The former racetrack site has also been discussed as a potential location of a casino for the Shinnecock Indian Nation
Shinnecock Indian Nation
The Shinnecock Indian Nation is a federally recognized tribe, headquartered in Suffolk County, New York, on the south shore of Long Island. Shinnecock are an Algonquian people from Long Island...
. In 1997, developer Wilbur Breslin
Wilbur Breslin
Wilbur "Willy" Breslin has been the President and Chief Executive Officer of Breslin Realty Development Corp. since 1965. Active in real estate development, leasing and brokerage for over 45 years, Breslin is an active member of the National Association of Real Estate Boards, the National Institute...
planned to develop the adjacent property into a regional shopping mall called Brookhaven Town Center.