The grand old names of American Thoroughbred horse racing—Whitney, Phipps, DuPont, Mellon, and Widener—exude images of industry tycoons and lineages traceable to the Mayflower.
But several of the most important equestrians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries hailed from a clan far more blue-collar than blue-blooded. Meet the family Belmont, namesakes of Belmont Park in Elmont, New York, as well as the Belmont Stakes, the third jewel of the Triple Crown. The 149th running of the “Test of the Champion,” as the 1 ½-mile contest has been dubbed, takes place on June 10, 2017.
The Belmonts’ origin story traces back more than 200 years, to the German town of Alzey. There, Simon Schönberg, a prominent Jewish citizen, and his wife, Fredericka, had a young child named August. Some sources claim their last name was Balmain, which was later Anglicized into “Belmont,” but “Schönberg” and “Belmont” both translate to “beautiful mountain” in English. Historian Bernard Livingston recounted in Their Turf: America’s Horsey Set and Its Princely Dynasties that August Belmont I began his career in finance essentially as an unpaid intern. At age fifteen, he started by sweeping the floors and taking out the trash for free at the banking house of the famed Rothschild clan, allegedly his distant cousins.
Young Schönberg worked his way up the corporate ladder so fast that it was rumored he was actually an illegitimate Rothschild, according to horseman Abram S. Hewitt in his Sire Lines. Regardless of the veracity of that claim, Schönberg became a near instant success; a few years after starting at Rothschild, he was negotiating finances with the Pope’s court. Schönberg acquired lavish tastes as he traveled from Germany to Italy and Cuba, as sports historian Steven A. Riess observed in The Sport of Kings and the Kings of Crime.
This story is from the Issue 60 edition of Greenwich Country Capitalist Magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the Issue 60 edition of Greenwich Country Capitalist Magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Humanity First
As I listened to Donald J. Trump’s “America First” inaugural speech on NPR, I was struck by a conversation I had had with my Afghan daughter before she departed for a semester in Rome the day before the inauguration.
Our Little Racket
In the waning light of the predinner hour, Mina Dawes sat across the table from Isabel, desperate to keep their conversation aloft. During the silences her gaze wandered out over Isabel’s pool, its surface entirely untroubled beneath the late-afternoon sun.
The Palm Beaches
IT WAS WINTER 2011; I was sitting alone in my home in Connecticut.
The Einstein Legacy Project
ALBERT Einstein was a true genius.
Statue Of Limitations
You can go in now, miss,” the receptionist directed.Emma crossed the waiting room and entered the office. The Chairman of the American Committee motioned Emma to a chair across the desk from him.
Hamptons International Film Festival's Silver Anniversary
LIGHTS! Camera! Action! It’s hard to believe the Hamptons International Film Festival (HIFF) is celebrating a quarter century of showcasing great works in film.
Megyn Kelly Settle for More
Rye’s Megyn Kelly, in the Spotlight.
Women Create Their Own Opportunities in New York's Growing Weed Industry
On a recent Thursday evening in downtown Manhattan, nearly 50 women and a few men, ranging from millennials to baby boomers, gathered in a sleek co-working space to talk about weed.
Mah Jong Memory
I remember mah jong through a haze of memory and my mother’s Benson & Hedges cigarette smoke.
The Heirs
Eleanor belonged to that class of New Yorker whose bloodlines were traced in the manner of racehorses: she was Phipps (sire) out of Deering (dam), by Livingston (sire’s dam) and Porter (dam’s dam).