Horse racing in Goshen traces to the 1770s, when local citizens raced their horses down the village's broad Main Street. The growing popularity of this informal competition created a need for race tracks, the first of which was Fiddler's Green, prepared in 1781 for running horses. In 1838, however, trotting races under saddle were conducted down a straightaway that later became the homestretch of Historic Track. Historic Track is America's oldest active trotting track, the first half-miler to become part of the Grand Circuit, the first half-mile track to host a sub-two-minute mile, and the only sporting facility in the nation designated a Registered National Historic Landmark. The entrance came to be called the Hall of Fame Gate because of its proximity to the Trotting Horse Museum/Hall of Fame of the Trotter. Constructed as a stable in 1913 by J. Howard Ford, owner of Stony Ford Farm, the building was sold in 1919 to William H. Cane, who named it the Good Time Stable. Cane brought the world-famous trotting race, the Hambletonian Stake, to Goshen's mile track, Good Time Park, near the site of Fiddler's Green. In 1929, Walter Cox, Cane's trainer, won the $60,000 Hambletonian Stake in Lexington, Kentucky. That victory inspired Cane to bid successfully to move the Hambletonian to "the cradle of the trotter," where it remained a Goshen tradition from 1930 to 1956. In 1951, a group of Standardbred owners and breeders led by E. Roland Harriman purchased the Good Time Stable building and established the Trotting Horse Museum as a tribute to the international sport of harness racing and the Standardbred.
