The fascinating history of this New Jersey golf course carrying on the ‘Preakness’ name
Preakness Hills Country Club in Wayne, N.J., turns 100 this year, and it has an interesting history and connection to the Preakness Stakes.
On Saturday, the 151st running of the Preakness Stakes will take place at Laurel Park in Maryland. The story of the race’s name, however, all started in New Jersey, where a golf club that carries on its name turns 100 this year. Preakness Hills Country Club in Wayne, N.
J. , opened in 1926, 53 years after the first running of the Preakness Stakes, which was named by former Maryland governor Oden Bowie. Bowie named the race in honor of a colt named Preakness, who was owned by American businessman, lawyer and owner and breeder of Thoroughbred racehorses Milton Holbrook Sanford.
Holbrook Sanford established a Thoroughbred horse racing and breeding operation called the Preakness Stud on farmlands in the Preakness section of Wayne, where the legend of the Preakness colt was born. Preakness won the inaugural running of the Dixie Stakes, which was then known as the Dinner Party Stakes, in 1870 on the opening day of the Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Md. , upsetting a heavily-favored colt called Foster.
Pimlico, where the Preakness Stakes is normally held, is currently under reconstruction, hence why it is being held at Laurel Park in 2026. The Preakness name dates even farther back than the breeding operation and the horse, however. The surrounding neighborhood of “Preakness” in Wayne takes its name from the Native American Minisi term “Pre-qua-les,” meaning “quail woods.