in 1909. The current Woodbine Racetrack owes its namesake to the original race course. The current Woodbine carries the name originally used by a racetrack which operated in southeast Toronto, at Queen Street East and Kingston Road, from 1874 through 1993. (While the
Old Woodbine Race Course was at the south end of
Woodbine Avenue, the current Woodbine is nowhere near it.) In 1951, it was operated by the Ontario Jockey Club (OJC) and held the prestigious
King's Plate, but it competed with several other racetracks in Ontario and was in need of modernization. During the 1950s, the OJC, under the leadership of Canadian industrialist and horse breeder
E.P. Taylor, began a program of racetrack acquisitions aimed at becoming the biggest and most profitable operator in Ontario horse racing, similar to Taylor's earlier acquisitions and consolidations in the Canadian brewing industry. In 1952, the OJC purchased and closed the money-losing
Thorncliffe Park, purchased and closed the Hamilton Racetrack, and purchased the
Fort Erie Racetrack for . Renovations began immediately at Fort Erie and at Woodbine, financed by a public offering of stock for . In 1953, the OJC bought Stamford Park in Stamford township (now part of
Niagara Falls, Ontario). It was closed and later redeveloped into a residential subdivision. In 1955, Taylor himself purchased the competing
Orpen-owned
Dufferin Park Racetrack and
Long Branch Racetracks for million ($ in dollars). The Orpen tracks were closed and redeveloped, and the Orpen race charters transferred to the OJC. The OJC continued the Canadian International and Cup and Saucer stakes races that had been held at the Orpen tracks. The racing charters acquired from the other tracks enabled the OJC to run 196 days of racing, more than double its allowed total of 84 days in 1952. All of the efforts at racetrack acquisitions and closures were designed to support a new "supertrack". In 1952, the OJC identified the new location of the racetrack at Highway 27 east of the Toronto airport and bought over . The architect chosen was Earle C. Morgan. Although Morgan had not designed a racetrack, he spent the next two years developing the design in conjunction with
Arthur Froelich, who had designed
Hollywood Park Racetrack and
Garden State Park Racetrack in the United States. The new track was designed to hold 40,000 spectators, have ample parking, three race courses and two training tracks. It had stable space for 1,000 horses and rooms for 700 employees. The grandstand, designed to get as many people as close to the finish line as possible, included several restaurants and cafeterias. Construction on the new supertrack began in 1955. The new racetrack opened on June 12, 1956, built at a cost of million ($ in dollars). It was initially known as the New Woodbine Racetrack. It dropped the
New in 1963. The old track was converted to a combined thoroughbred and standardbred track known thereafter as Old Woodbine or, for most of the rest of its history, as
Greenwood Raceway (during standardbred meets) and
Greenwood Race Track (during thoroughbred meets). The two thoroughbred and two standardbred meets conducted at Greenwood were transferred to the new Woodbine in 1994, which was until then exclusively devoted to thoroughbred racing. On June 30, 1959, Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh attended the 100th running of the Queen's Plate, and Queen Elizabeth II again on July 4, 2010, attended the 151st running of the Queen's Plate Stakes and presented trophies. The track was the opening venue for the
1976 Summer Paralympics, and some of the sporting events were held here. The
Arlington Million was held at Woodbine in 1988. The
Breeders' Cup was held at Woodbine in 1996. The Woodbine facility is also home to the
Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame. In 2018, the track began using a GPS-based timing system. In 2022, Woodbine announced plans to add an 8,000-seat
soccer-specific stadium and adjoining training facilities in the northeast corner of the property; this would be the presumed new home of
York United FC and possibly house a future professional
women's soccer club. ==Physical attributes==