The photo finish was invented here, on a rancher's backyard track. Rillito Park at 4502 North 1st Avenue in Tucson opened in 1943 on J. Rukin Jelks's stud farm along the Rillito River and is recognised as the birthplace of modern, formalised Quarter Horse racing - a 91-acre site now listed in its entirety on the National Register of Historic Places. Jelks and Melville Haskell used the track as a laboratory: the first three-eighths-mile straightaway - the chute system that became the world standard for Quarter Horse racing - was built here, and the pair pioneered the photo finish by pairing a high-speed clock with a movie camera shooting at a thousandth of a second. Haskell wrote the rules and specifications of the young sport at this track between 1943 and 1946, experimenting with graded races, weighted handicaps, futurities and derbies; the American Quarter Horse Association dedicated a historical marker to the park in 1996. Thoroughbreds joined in 1953 with a five-eighths-mile oval, and the alumni file grew famous names - Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert and the jockey brothers Angel and Milo Valenzuela both started at Rillito. The track has dodged demolition repeatedly since the 1980s - old stables gave way to soccer fields - but live racing still returns each winter, with pari-mutuel weekends running through February and March and the grandstand crowds proving the tradition's stubbornness. Between meets the site works as a county multi-use park and festival grounds, hosting concerts, food festivals and markets, while the preserved Jelks farmhouse and restored historic stable await their planned second life as a racing heritage museum and the Arizona Quarter Horse Hall of Fame. The setting adds to the anachronism's charm: the track sits in the middle of Tucson's north side, framed by the Catalina foothills, with the river path running along its southern rail - a working relic inside a modern city.

Type: Outdoors

Address: 4502 N 1st Ave, Tucson, AZ, United States, 85718

Opening Date: 01/01/1943

Outdoor Area