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6 unusual facts about Oriental Park Racetrack


Buda Godman

: After the 1916 scandal, up through the mid-1920s, Godman became the protege of Charles A. Stoneham, who, among other things, owned the New York Giants baseball club and in Havana, Cuba, owned the Cuba-America Jockey Club, the Havana Casino, and the Oriental Park Racetrack.

John McEntee Bowman

A horse lover and Thoroughbred racing enthusiast, Bowman was president of the United Hunts Racing Association and the National Horse Show, and for a time served as the president of the Havana-American Jockey Club that operated the Oriental Park Racetrack in Marianao, Cuba.

Oriental Park Racetrack

Lacey, Robert Little Man: Meyer Lansky and the Gangster Life (1993) Random House ISBN 978-0-517-10536-8

Many American celebrities on vacation or who were performing at the nearby Tropicana Club visited fashionable Oriental Park Racetrack, as did Europeans such as tennis star Suzanne Lenglen.

In his book Little Man: Meyer Lansky and the Gangster Life, author Robert Lacey wrote that in 1937, gangster Meyer Lansky gained control of the racetrack and casino.

Prominent hotelier John McEntee Bowman, owner of Westchester Country Club in Rye, New York and president of Bowman-Biltmore Hotels Corp., which counted the Seville-Biltmore Hotel in Havana as part of its hotel properties, served as president of the Havana-American Jockey Club, as did Harry D. ("Curly") Brown, owner of Arlington Park in Chicago.



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