Laurel Park

Laurel Park is an American thoroughbred racetrack located just outside Laurel, Maryland which opened in 1911. The track is ​1 1⁄8 miles in circumference. Its name was changed to "Laurel Race Course" for several decades until returning to the "Laurel Park" designation in 1994.

Laurel Park Racecourse opened October 2, 1911 under the direction of the Laurel Four County Fair. In 1914, New York businessmen and prominent horsemen, Philip J. Dwyer and James Butler purchased the track and appointed Matt Winn as the general manager. In 1918 the field was used by Army Engineers as a training camp before deployment to France. In 1946, a stable fire broke out with 60 horses saved. In 1947, the Maryland Jockey Club, which owned Timonium and Pimlico, purchased Laurel Park from the Butler estate with the idea of shifting the Pimlico meeting to Laurel. After the Maryland General Assembly rejected the idea of replacing Pimlico with Laurel Park, the track was sold in 1950 to Morris Schapiro who had his youngest son, John D. Schapiro as the track's new president.

Wikipedia