A half-hour drive from the Belmont Park track, Cressida Lewis is running a race of her own, trying to finish all the hat orders pouring into her Gun Hill Road store from women planning to attend the Belmont Stakes.

She sits in a tiny room surrounded by spools of string, a master hat-maker pressing on in what she calls a fading profession. 

"Very few people are making hats," she said. "They rather design them and get the frames from overseas. They're really not making them from scratch anymore."

Lewis' handmade creations are in high-demand. Customers are calling in and emailing orders from all over the world.

The hats sell for as little as $15 to more than $1,000 for intricate designs. 

They're displayed everywhere in her small store, organized by color and style, a sure bet to turn heads at the racetrack. 

"I sometimes like to go a little bit overboard you know," said customer Barbara Howard. "It's the derby coming up too, and I'm just trying to figure out."

The store has three best-selling hats, rhinestone, fascinators and wide brim.

Though she's up to the brim in hat orders now, Lewis remembers the first hat she ever made, when she was a 15-year-old on the island of Jamaica needing a hat for church.  

"We had to wear hats, and so I decided that I was going to take my sister's old hat, rip it apart and turn it into something else," she said. "And I realized that I was very good at it."

She's 55 now, her hats are more elaborate, and her business is thriving -- thanks to favorable-word-of-mouth and referrals from a popular Manhattan milliner who closed down. From Late April to September, Lewis works 13 hours a day. 

"This is my trade," she said. "I am very good at making hats so I will continue to do this until I am no longer here."