Green Mountain Racetrack - Trivia Question!!

I wasn't familiar with this track so, as usual, googled! This site has the first program and other info. Interesting!
home.comcast.net/~lmscisz/tracks/frGm.htm

Gone To Greener Pastures!



It was a beautiful spring day in Southern Vermont on May 24, 1965 and shortly after 2 pm Oxbow under jockey Roy Parker was the first horse to trip the photo finish camera at Green Mountain Park. Dispite the fact that everything went off without a hitch the crowd of 4,000 was supposed to be 10,000 and the handle of 200,000 was supposed to 400,000 was a disappointment. Unfortunatly this wasn't the begining it was the begining of the end for the Mountain.

Management quickly realized that racing days in remote Pownal Vermont was going to work so they switched to a twi-light format but in a few weeks went to nightime racing which remained the standard till the track closed. In April of 1968 Green Mountain got a shot in the arm as it became the first track east of the Mississippi to conduct Sunday racing. Unforunately that was short lived as other east coast tracks were allowed to operate on Sunday and the crowds of out of staters stayed closer to home.

A short twelve years later on a beautiful fall afternoon in September Sandy's World with David Strong was the last horse to get his photo taken at Green Mountain. Two weeks later the track was converted to dog racing which ran till 1992 when the track finally closed.

Green Mountain was quite unique as far as race tracks go. It started life with ambitions of being able to extend the aura of the Saratoga meet in a pastoral country setting and died as a dog track. In the middle there was also harness racing and at one time all three meets were conducted in the same year. As for being a Thoroughbred track Green Mountain quickly descended to running bottom level claimers usually running five furlongs and seven and a half furlong distances. It's purse value was 2.

"All ya gotta say is Herve". As crazy as it sounds Green Mountain might have had a bigger impact to racing on the east coast than any major track. In the mid seventies it introduced Sunday racing to the east coast. In those early days when Green Mountain was the only Sunday game in town the great harness driver Herve Fillion would show up during the harness meet and win at least half the races on the card. You weren't going to get rich but you would cash some tickets.

Today Green Mountain sits abandoned a few attempts to revive racing have failed, the stable area has been demolished but the grandstand and track remain frozen in time for not having been used in twenty five years the thirteen sixteenth thorougbred and five eights inner harness track are clearly outlined.

Then:




Now:

RG is Googler Supremo LOL Great stuff btw