One of Mike Jester’s most vivid memories of an afternoon spent at the racetrack occurred April 14, 1977, a day he decided to visit Garden State Park in Cherry
Hill, N.J.
In mid-afternoon, after being invited into the second-story jockeys’ room by a friend, Jester noticed a haze in the air and the acrid smell of smoke. He alerted a security guard, and from there word spread that the entire grandstand, which had opened in 1942 during the height of World War II raw material rationing and had been constructed nearly entirely of wood, was on fire.
As flames consumed the grandstand, riders and valets escaped the jockeys’ room through the windows, throwing down equipment and hanging on to ladders and fire
hoses. Eventually, the Colonial-style racetrack, built by developer Eugene Mori, burned nearly to the ground.
