This is Colonel Matt Winn’s time of year. As we approach the Kentucky Derby, his name comes up, as in Hello Race Fans contributing editor Teresa Genaro’s 2009 article from the New York Times’ Rail blog. He’s the father of the Kentucky Derby, the one-time manager of Churchill Downs, and, in 1945, the subject of an autobiography, written with Frank G. Menke. Menke was not just any ghostwriter: he covered sports for the Hearst newspapers from 1912-1932 and worked with Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb. By the time … Read More >

Red Star Animal Emergency Services, a wing of the American Humane Association (AHA), deals specifically with animals in danger from emergencies like fires and floods. To me, “Red Star” sounds like something horse-related: jockey silks, or a barn, and a quick Internet search reveals that there is, in fact, a Red Star feed dealership in Iowa. As the AHA website says, the idea for the Red Star began in August of 1916, when the War Department asked the AHA for help with wounded war animals, from German Shepherds to cavalry horses.

Many of … Read More >

“She was fast, she was beautiful, and she was smart,” writes William H. P. Robertson in his landmark The History of Thoroughbred Racing in America. This describes the great race mare Pan Zareta, but it also applies to the track where she is buried: New Orleans’ Fair Grounds Race Course. In the track’s heyday of the teens and 1920s, Fair Grounds was fast because of the speedy horses, beautiful because of its lush growth, and smart because it was a great place to race for Northerners seeking a warm place to run their … Read More >

Horses and books are my two primary preoccupations. I love books about horses, and I love racing libraries. The Library of Congress, where I do a lot of my research, has extensive holdings of racing racing materials but sometimes you need to go where the action is. I divide racing libraries into two categories: the ones I know well, and the ones I want to go to.

In very horsey Middleburg, Virginia, on the same campus that houses the editorial offices of The Chronicle of the Horse, is the … Read More >

In August of 1869, Maryland Governor Oden Bowie was at a dinner party in Saratoga. He enjoyed the convivial evening so much that he promised that he would build a track at home in Maryland to host a commemorative race: The Dinner Party Stakes. A horse named Preakness won the first running of the Dinner Party, and lent his name to the Preakness Stakes, run and won for the first time in 1873 by a horse called Survivor. That dinner party gave racing the Preakness; the Dinner Party morphed into the Dixie … Read More >

In the spring of 1908, the great Colin was the king of New York, winning every race he entered, but in May, his fans were worried. Colin, they had heard, was lame. He had bowed both tendons, and, in the words of the Daily Racing Form, he was “considered to be hopelessly broken down.” The situation appeared dire, and Colin’s owner, James Keene, had put out the word that the horse was unable to race.

Then, some hope. Perhaps Colin was not as bad off as he’d seemed to be. … Read More >

The title “Triple Crown winner” rings sweetly in the ears of racing fans. But Sir Barton, the first to earn the title after winning the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont Stakes in 1919, wasn’t actually called that until 1930.

Sir Barton was the son of Star Shoot (who also sired the indomitable Grey Lag) and a mare named Lady Sterling. He was foaled at John Madden’s Hamburg Place. Madden, unimpressed with the colt’s tepid 2-year-old season, sold Sir Barton to Canadian sportsman and impressive owner J. K. L. Ross. … Read More >

Turf writers loved to write about the great race gelding Exterminator, and after the Philadelphia Handicap on April 21, 1923, they could chronicle his winning more stakes races than any other horse: 34 in all.

The hectic style of 1920s journalism, replete with life and adjectives, perfectly suited Exterminator’s extraordinary feats. Here is W.C. Vreeland, who covered racing for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, on the Philadelphia ‘cap, as he called it: “It has often been said that the only two sure things in this world are death and taxation. Exterminator’s head … Read More >

71 years ago, in March of 1941, old Merrick died.

Merrick was more of a symbol of Thoroughbred greatness than an actual great Thoroughbred. His accomplishments were modest but consistent, and he lived until he was 38 years old, and he is the center of one of the great stories of horse-owner devotion.

He was foaled in 1903 on a farm near Sacramento, California, and he had a few owners before Lexington pinhooker J. Cal Milam bought him in 1906. Merrick was a mudder. In 1910, Daily Racing … Read More >

The first thing many Thoroughbred aficionados think of with Valentine’s Day is that it’s the un-official, not always heeded, opening day of breeding season. Last year, Jay Hovdey wrote in DRF that “It is no small thing that in 2004 there were 34,797 registered American Thoroughbred foals. Some of them were champions and stakes winners, many, many more of them were entirely something else.” It’s that chance that makes the process romantic and Valentines-related, because as anyone who has spent time in the breeding shed can tell you, romance is usually pretty far from … Read More >