Mount Vernon Handicap
| Class | Discontinued stakes |
|---|---|
| Location | Empire City Race Track, Yonkers, New York, United States |
| Inaugurated | 1907 |
| Race type | Thoroughbred - Flat racing |
| Race information | |
| Distance | 1 mile, 70 yards |
| Surface | Dirt |
| Track | left-handed |
| Qualification | Three-year-olds and up |
The Mount Vernon Handicap was an American Thoroughbred horse race run in twenty-one of the years between 1907 and 1930 at Empire City Race Track in Yonkers, New York with one year only in 1915 at Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, New York. There was no race held from 1911 thru 1913 as a result of anti-betting legislation passed by the New York Legislature under Governor Charles Evans Hughes. Titled the Hart-Agnew, transgressors of the law faced substantial fines and up to a year in prison.
First run on August 7, 1913, the Mount Vernon Handicap was a sprint race of about three-quarters of a mile and was won by Samuel Hyman's five-year-old gelding, Quadrille. The following year the race was changed to one mile, a distance that would continue thru 1924 when it was increased to one mile and seventy yards.
Andrew Miller’s 1918 winner Roamer would have a career that saw him receive American Thoroughbred racing’s highest honor with induction into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame.
In winning the 1924 Mount Vernon Handicap, August Belmont Jr.'s Ordinance broke the track record for the one mile distance on dirt. The three-year-old colt's time of 1:38 flat would hold up as the Mount Vernon Handicap's fastest time at the Empire City track.