New Orleans' first stake race was run 104 years ago. A horse named Angora won it, running on a makeshift track near the shores of Lake Pontchartrain, around a grove of moss-hung live oaks. For 36 years the track was a playground for Creole gallants and their blooded plantation ponies, for the stock fairs and horse races of New Orleans' Mechanics' Society. Eventually the informal track became the Fair Grounds.
After the Civil War, New Orleans' favorite track, Metairie, was turned into a cemetery, and the Fair Grounds, home of the Louisiana Jockey Club, became the centre of U. S. winter racing....
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