At the Starting Post: Racing Venues and the Origins of Thoroughbred Racing in Kentucky, 1783–1865

The citizens of Kentucky, and of the Bluegrass region in particular, have been famously preoccupied with racing spirited horses since the pioneer era, when communities were little more than huddles of primitive cabins in the wilderness and competitions were impulsive sprints through muddy streets still dotted with occasional tree stumps. The first equines brought into Kentucky by the pioneers were all, by necessity, working horses required for taming a wilderness and the needs of a burgeoning agricultural society, but even these common sorts were pitted against one another in races. Among the settlers, however, were men of wealth and a sporting disposition who soon began to import Thoroughbreds from the east, horses described as "hot-blooded" and bred strictly for speed on the racecourse.¹ Horseracing was the first spectator sport in America, and by 1800, nearly every significant community in the Bluegrass had established a racecourse of its own, much like present-day small towns erect and support high school football stadiums.

Most of these early competitions were "flat" races, in which horses competed on a level racecourse over a predetermined distance, controlled by jockeys mounted on their backs. Most, but not all, flat racing involved Thoroughbred horses. The sport is comprised of three interrelated components: Thoroughbred horses; the breeders, trainers, jockeys, and other ancillary personnel; and the supporting infrastructure, including the horse farms, racing associations (jockey clubs), and racecourses. Many of the historical accounts of Thoroughbred racing are little more than hagiographies of prominent horses and horsemen of the nineteenth century, focusing upon such celebrated equine heroes as Grey Eagle and Lexington and turf magnates such as Elisha Warfield and Robert Aitcheson Alexander and their lavish Bluegrass estates.² Recent scholarship, particularly contributions by Maryjean Wall, Katherine Mooney, and James C. Nicholson, has provided more critical examinations of the development and growth of the sport.³

Kentucky's early racing infrastructure has received less attention in the histories; even the best usually contains little more than a brief reference to early quarter-horse racing, the founding of the Kentucky Jockey Club in 1797 and the Kentucky Association in 1826, and then skips to the establishment of Churchill Downs in 1875—as if little of significance had occurred during the intervening half century or in any location other than Lexington or Louisville. By examining primary sources such as advertisements for race meetings in early newspapers and race results published in sporting journals, along with secondary sources, it is possible to reconstruct the hitherto overlooked developmental chronology and geographic distribution of venues for racing in Kentucky prior to the Civil War and to examine the periodic decline and resurgence of the sport during the period. Although turfmen in Lexington—and to a lesser extent Louisville—developed a stable racing organization and infrastructure in the decades prior to the Civil War, most other communities in the state struggled to maintain such organizations and racing venues. The numerous small tracks and county associations that often existed for only five to ten years at a time show that alongside the story of long-term professionalization and success in building a horse industry in Kentucky, there is a larger story of false starts and failure in the decades before the Civil War.

Early Racing Venues in the Bluegrass Region

At the time of Kentucky's settlement, the Thoroughbred horse was a relatively recent innovation in the equine world. This fast-paced, high-spirited breed had been developed in England during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by crossing native mares with so-called Oriental stallions—Arabian, Barb, and Turkmen horses imported from the Middle East. The importation of British Thoroughbreds to North America was interrupted during the Revolutionary period, although many blood horses brought over by English officers were captured and subsequently became part of American pedigrees. Conversely, the British confiscated American horses for use as military load haulers and cavalry mounts, and often spitefully destroyed some of the finest breeding stock. The disruption of equine livestock and infrastructure was particularly severe in Virginia, essentially bringing the sport...