The modern day Kentucky Derby is considered the pinnacle of modern-day horse racing, a sport that has evolved following the domestication of horses in 4,000 B.C. Over the span of recorded domestic animal and human interaction, horse racing is widely recognized as the most popular animal-interactive athletic event. Similar sports include Bull Fighting, Greyhound Racing, Camel Wrestling and Chicken Throwing.
The Kentucky Derby was founded by Meriwether Clark, Grandson of William Clark of the Lewis & Clark Expedition. Born to limited means in 1849 in Louisville Kentucky, Meriwether spent much time with the family of esteemed railroad magnate Samuel Laughlin Orr, to whom his father was a servant. Meriwether forged a relationship early on with Dorothy Orr, one of Samuel’s two daughters and heiress to the family fortune. In 1866, Dorothy won the Bluegrass Beauty Pageant and among many suitors, Meriwether spent the next two years courting her, unsuccessfully.
In 1868, Dorothy Orr chose the hand of noted astronomer Hanson Kepler, whom the Washington Post dubbed 'the post-Civil War era's answer to Nicolaus Copernicus.' Devastated and defeated, Meriwether sunk into depression and seclusion before courting Dorothy's older sister Uma Orr, taking her hand in marriage in May of 1870. Uma's family paintings depict her as a gangly woman and during the ceremony, Meriwether's close friend and best man Jonathon Quinn is said to have referred to the bride as a 'wholly unsatisfactory and tragic consolation prize in the Orr daughter sweepstakes.' Nonetheless, the two settled on a small horse farm provided by Uma's father and lived the next several years without major incident.
As Meriwether began spending beyond the means provided for him by his father in-law Samuel’s allowance, he sought his own income based on his amateur equestrian pursuits. Together with his middle-class friends and associates (described by his father-in-law as a 'rag-tag bunch of vagabonds and ass-grabbers) he began producing a series of unorganized horse-races on which Louisville locals would bet their wages on the outcome. Most early races were muddled affairs often lacking the correct number of horses. One race’s participants are said to have included five colts, three dogs, a pig and a rabbit. None the less, Meriwether’s contests continued to grow in demand.
In 1874, Meriwether'
s races became so popular that he sought the support of Kentucky taxpayers to purchase a plot of land suitable for a major racetrack. After several months of research, Meriwether purchased the abandoned 300-acre estate owned by noted pastor Adam Churchill, who was desperate for funds after unsuccessfully investing his fortune into discounting the merits and accuracy of the Farmer’s Almanac (Churchill claimed it was a blasphemous violation of the First Commandment). In September of 1874, Meriwether completed the transaction and dubbed the racetrack Churchill Downs.
However, just as Meriwether had completed the financing to acquire the estate, his wife's health began to decline. Uma began to succumb to the non-fatal but embarrassing condition known as Alopecia (female-pattern baldness). With Meriwether's new race track fully financed but left unconstructed, he took a leave of absence from the project to tend to his balding wife. In his diary, Meriwether confessed that Uma was his eternal beloved and that he would gladly 'sacrifice the whole of my earnings to restore her luscious billowy hair. I’d sooner gouge my eyes than peer on her barren scalp again.'
After consulting with physicians, Uma's head remained irreconcilably bare. Devastated and helpless, Meriwether vowed to 'alter modern social conventions to embrace the hairless woman as a Goddess.’
By 1875, Meriwether turned to the Churchill Downs project as a p
otential solution to his wife’s Alopecia, vowing that the track would be home to the 'most important and influential beast-cooperative competitive gambling event on the planet.' He sought to make Churchill Downs a safe haven and refuge for his hairless bride, and addressed the Churchill Downs Inaugural Event Planning Committee (CDIEPC), seeking for the requirement of all female spectators to shave their heads bald for the venue's first race. Enraged at the outlandish demand, Meriwether’s business partners called for his dismissal from the Committee and Meriwether later backed down from the suggestion. Eventually, the Committee settled on the stipulation that 'all female entrants and patrons of Churchill Downs are encouraged to display their enthusiasm and dedication to the race by sporting fancy, extravagant hats.' This negotiation suited the socialite spectators and Meriwether was satisfied with the opportunity the new guideline afforded his wife to conceal her baldness.
In 1875 the 1.5 mile track was completed (the course was later shortened to 1.25 miles in 1896) and Meriwether began to publicize the first race for the date of May 17, 1875. Initial response was positive if local headwear sales were any indication, as profits within the local Louisville industry jumped 135% for the two months leading up to the inaugural race. The first 'Kentucky Derby' featured 15 three year-old horses with jockeys, and over 10,000 tickets were sold.
Surprised at the Derby's burgeoning success, Meriwether saw an opportunity at publicity and demanded that he be entered as a last-minute replacement jockey. By far the largest jockey in the field (Meriwether was a man of generous proportion - his death certificate in 1899 listed him at 6'1, 210 pounds) his horse trailed the field early by several lengths and pulled up with a broken leg a few strides into the first turn and was later euthanized. Many point to this folly as the first in a string of hard-luck incidents that eventually led a stylishly-hatted Uma to leave Meriwether in 1877.
Despite Meriwether's setbacks, the first Kentucky Derby was a rousing success. The 4'11 105 pound jockey Oliver Lewis won the first race while riding the American Thoroughbred Aristides. Local newspapers dubbed the race the 'most exciting two minutes in sports' and the event was immediately held in the same regard as other esteemed American race competitions; The Preakness Stakes in Maryland and the Belmont Stakes in New York. Unofficially and almost immediately, the three races were dubbed the 'Triple Crown' of horse racing (a horse who won all three in the same year is said to be a ‘Triple Crown Winner.’)
In the early years of the Triple Crown, no single horse ever truly contended to win each race in a single year, citing the treacherous standards in horse-transportation during the 19th century. Before the invention of modern horse-trailers in 1918, as irony would have it, the only conveyance for transporting racehorses was via carriage pulled by other racehorses. Without proper transportation, many owners rode their racehorses from one event to another. In the years between 1875 and 1918, most Kentucky Derby winners perished of exposure and starvation while traversing the 650 mile trek between Louisville Kentucky and Baltimore Maryland to compete in the Preakness Stakes.
Then in 1918, the magazine Popular Science Monthly reported on a new technology for transporting racehorses, dubbed the 'motorized horse trailer.' It is no coincidence that the first Triple Crown winner coincided with this tremendous advancement in horse-transportation standards. Following the inception of the modern-day motorized horse trailer, the Thoroughbred Colt Sir Barton nearly immediately won the first Triple Crown in recorded history in 1919.
Including Sir Barton, a total of 11 horses have won the American Triple Crown, culminating in perhaps the most dominant racehorse of all time. In 1973, Secretariat won the Kentucky Derby by an astounding 31 lengths en route to the course record of 1:59, a mark that still stands to this day.
Currently, Walt Disney Pictures is in production of a film titled "Secretariat," starring Diane Lane as the horse's owner, Vern Troyer as the horse's troubled jockey and Sarah Jessica Parker as the three year-old thoroughbred Triple Crown winning horse.
The Kentucky Derby was founded by Meriwether Clark, Grandson of William Clark of the Lewis & Clark Expedition. Born to limited means in 1849 in Louisville Kentucky, Meriwether spent much time with the family of esteemed railroad magnate Samuel Laughlin Orr, to whom his father was a servant. Meriwether forged a relationship early on with Dorothy Orr, one of Samuel’s two daughters and heiress to the family fortune. In 1866, Dorothy won the Bluegrass Beauty Pageant and among many suitors, Meriwether spent the next two years courting her, unsuccessfully.
In 1868, Dorothy Orr chose the hand of noted astronomer Hanson Kepler, whom the Washington Post dubbed 'the post-Civil War era's answer to Nicolaus Copernicus.' Devastated and defeated, Meriwether sunk into depression and seclusion before courting Dorothy's older sister Uma Orr, taking her hand in marriage in May of 1870. Uma's family paintings depict her as a gangly woman and during the ceremony, Meriwether's close friend and best man Jonathon Quinn is said to have referred to the bride as a 'wholly unsatisfactory and tragic consolation prize in the Orr daughter sweepstakes.' Nonetheless, the two settled on a small horse farm provided by Uma's father and lived the next several years without major incident.
As Meriwether began spending beyond the means provided for him by his father in-law Samuel’s allowance, he sought his own income based on his amateur equestrian pursuits. Together with his middle-class friends and associates (described by his father-in-law as a 'rag-tag bunch of vagabonds and ass-grabbers) he began producing a series of unorganized horse-races on which Louisville locals would bet their wages on the outcome. Most early races were muddled affairs often lacking the correct number of horses. One race’s participants are said to have included five colts, three dogs, a pig and a rabbit. None the less, Meriwether’s contests continued to grow in demand.
In 1874, Meriwether'
s races became so popular that he sought the support of Kentucky taxpayers to purchase a plot of land suitable for a major racetrack. After several months of research, Meriwether purchased the abandoned 300-acre estate owned by noted pastor Adam Churchill, who was desperate for funds after unsuccessfully investing his fortune into discounting the merits and accuracy of the Farmer’s Almanac (Churchill claimed it was a blasphemous violation of the First Commandment). In September of 1874, Meriwether completed the transaction and dubbed the racetrack Churchill Downs.However, just as Meriwether had completed the financing to acquire the estate, his wife's health began to decline. Uma began to succumb to the non-fatal but embarrassing condition known as Alopecia (female-pattern baldness). With Meriwether's new race track fully financed but left unconstructed, he took a leave of absence from the project to tend to his balding wife. In his diary, Meriwether confessed that Uma was his eternal beloved and that he would gladly 'sacrifice the whole of my earnings to restore her luscious billowy hair. I’d sooner gouge my eyes than peer on her barren scalp again.'
After consulting with physicians, Uma's head remained irreconcilably bare. Devastated and helpless, Meriwether vowed to 'alter modern social conventions to embrace the hairless woman as a Goddess.’
By 1875, Meriwether turned to the Churchill Downs project as a p
otential solution to his wife’s Alopecia, vowing that the track would be home to the 'most important and influential beast-cooperative competitive gambling event on the planet.' He sought to make Churchill Downs a safe haven and refuge for his hairless bride, and addressed the Churchill Downs Inaugural Event Planning Committee (CDIEPC), seeking for the requirement of all female spectators to shave their heads bald for the venue's first race. Enraged at the outlandish demand, Meriwether’s business partners called for his dismissal from the Committee and Meriwether later backed down from the suggestion. Eventually, the Committee settled on the stipulation that 'all female entrants and patrons of Churchill Downs are encouraged to display their enthusiasm and dedication to the race by sporting fancy, extravagant hats.' This negotiation suited the socialite spectators and Meriwether was satisfied with the opportunity the new guideline afforded his wife to conceal her baldness.In 1875 the 1.5 mile track was completed (the course was later shortened to 1.25 miles in 1896) and Meriwether began to publicize the first race for the date of May 17, 1875. Initial response was positive if local headwear sales were any indication, as profits within the local Louisville industry jumped 135% for the two months leading up to the inaugural race. The first 'Kentucky Derby' featured 15 three year-old horses with jockeys, and over 10,000 tickets were sold.
Surprised at the Derby's burgeoning success, Meriwether saw an opportunity at publicity and demanded that he be entered as a last-minute replacement jockey. By far the largest jockey in the field (Meriwether was a man of generous proportion - his death certificate in 1899 listed him at 6'1, 210 pounds) his horse trailed the field early by several lengths and pulled up with a broken leg a few strides into the first turn and was later euthanized. Many point to this folly as the first in a string of hard-luck incidents that eventually led a stylishly-hatted Uma to leave Meriwether in 1877.
Despite Meriwether's setbacks, the first Kentucky Derby was a rousing success. The 4'11 105 pound jockey Oliver Lewis won the first race while riding the American Thoroughbred Aristides. Local newspapers dubbed the race the 'most exciting two minutes in sports' and the event was immediately held in the same regard as other esteemed American race competitions; The Preakness Stakes in Maryland and the Belmont Stakes in New York. Unofficially and almost immediately, the three races were dubbed the 'Triple Crown' of horse racing (a horse who won all three in the same year is said to be a ‘Triple Crown Winner.’)
In the early years of the Triple Crown, no single horse ever truly contended to win each race in a single year, citing the treacherous standards in horse-transportation during the 19th century. Before the invention of modern horse-trailers in 1918, as irony would have it, the only conveyance for transporting racehorses was via carriage pulled by other racehorses. Without proper transportation, many owners rode their racehorses from one event to another. In the years between 1875 and 1918, most Kentucky Derby winners perished of exposure and starvation while traversing the 650 mile trek between Louisville Kentucky and Baltimore Maryland to compete in the Preakness Stakes.
Then in 1918, the magazine Popular Science Monthly reported on a new technology for transporting racehorses, dubbed the 'motorized horse trailer.' It is no coincidence that the first Triple Crown winner coincided with this tremendous advancement in horse-transportation standards. Following the inception of the modern-day motorized horse trailer, the Thoroughbred Colt Sir Barton nearly immediately won the first Triple Crown in recorded history in 1919.
Including Sir Barton, a total of 11 horses have won the American Triple Crown, culminating in perhaps the most dominant racehorse of all time. In 1973, Secretariat won the Kentucky Derby by an astounding 31 lengths en route to the course record of 1:59, a mark that still stands to this day.
Currently, Walt Disney Pictures is in production of a film titled "Secretariat," starring Diane Lane as the horse's owner, Vern Troyer as the horse's troubled jockey and Sarah Jessica Parker as the three year-old thoroughbred Triple Crown winning horse.
