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Commack History: The Burr Family Business

The Burr family became known for training some of the best trotters and buidling a racetrack right in Commack.

The Burr family of Commack was once well-known for breeding and training horses and building a racetrack located where the high school is today.

Brad Harris, Smithtown Historian, said the Burrs’ success with trotters began in the 1800s.

Smith Burr owned a hotel and tavern in the 19th century on the northwest side of Burr Road and began the family tradition by breeding light harness horses. According to the historian, he started with two horses named Rhode Island and Betsy Bounce and was the first to use a sulky, a cart where the rider sat, with trotters.

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According to Commack: A Look Into the Past by Lucille Rosen, Smith Burr also helped to train Lady Suffolk. The horse was owned by a neighbor and was a champion racehorse from Long Island. It’s believed by many that Lady Suffolk was the horse referred to in the song The Old Grey Mare.

When Smith’s son Carll Burr was a teenager, he began breeding and training trotters, according to Harris. His successful training began with a horse named Rose of Washington and grew from there.

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Carll Burr bought the 350-acre Indian Head Stock Farm on the south side of Burr Road in 1857. He specialized in a breed of horses called Hambletonians and started the Burr Equine Educational Institution. Harris said the farm had a half- mile track on it, and he would train about 30 to 40 horses a year. One of the horses, Trustee, was the first to break a trotting speed of 20 miles per hour.

In the article If You're Thinking of Living In Commack, L.I.; A Hamlet Sprawling Into Two Towns published in The New York Times on Dec. 21, 1997 Burr was called the best trainer and handler of thoroughbred trotters in the country during his time. Burr became known for working with horses with owners such as President Ulysses S. Grant, William H. Vanderbilt and J.P. Morgan.

According to Carll Burr’s March 13, 1916 obituary in the Long Islander, he also became known as the Grand Old Man of Commack, and in 1873 his patrons were so many that he had to refuse 112 horses.

By 1890 Carll Burr Jr. joined him in the business, and Harris said it was the young Burr who built the track on the east side of Town Line Road where Commack High School is today. Trotting races were held at the track every weekend in the 1890s with well-known New Yorkers and Long Islanders racing their horses.

The track did extremely well until an anti-betting law was passed in 1900. Before the law was passed, Carll Burr Jr. was already involved in politics serving as a New York State Assemblyman from 1896 to 1898. After losing a run for state senator, the new law inspired him to run again in 1904, and he won the election. The young Burr served as senator until 1908.

The popularity of horse racing faded and Carll Burr Jr. soon left the business. The track became basically unused except for motorcycle, bicycle and automobile races in the 1920s and 1930s, according to Harris. The era of horse racing in Commack had come to an end.  

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