The Aqueduct Racetrack story.

Operating near the site of a former conduit of the Brooklyn Waterworks that brought water from eastern Long Island to the Ridgewood Reservoir, Aqueduct Racetrack opened on September 27, 1894, by the Queens County Jockey Club. The track was named "Aqueduct" after the former Ridgewood Aqueduct. The facility was expanded and a new clubhouse was constructed before the 1941 summer meet.

In 1955, the Greater New York Association took over Aqueduct along with Belmont Park, Saratoga Race Course, and Jamaica Race Course, deciding to make major upgrades to Aqueduct, after which Jamaica Race Course would be sold for redevelopment as a housing project. Aqueduct closed in 1956, reopening September 14, 1959, after $33 million of renovations designed by noted racetrack architect Arthur Froehlich of the firm Arthur Froehlich and Associates of Beverly Hills, California. The Equestrian Restaurant in the clubhouse opened in 1981 and was the largest restaurant in New York City at the time.

Currently, one annual meeting is held at Aqueduct, usually from the last Wednesday in October until the first Sunday in May. Races had been run on the Inner Dirt Track between the Wednesday after Thanksgiving until just before the Wood Memorial in recent years. Prior to 1977, a summer meeting also was held at Aqueduct, from mid-June to late July. The Wood Memorial is Aqueduct's marquee race, which culminates the winter meet. The prestigious Jockey Club Gold Cup was usually run there between 1958 and 1974, and what was perhaps the track's most distinctive race, the marathon 2¹⁄₄ miles (3.6 km) Display Handicap, was last contested in 1990.