Lexington (horse)
| Lexington | |
 Lexington based on an illustration by Edward Troye |
|
| Race: | English blood |
| Father: | Boston |
| Mother: | Alice Carneal |
| Mother, father: | Sarpendon |
| Gender: | stallion |
| Year of birth: | 1850 |
| Year of death: | 1875 |
| Country: | United States |
| Colour: | Brown |
| Breeder: | Elisha Warfield |
| Owner: | Elisha Warfield, Richard Ten Broeck, AJ or RA Alexander |
| Trainer: | Henry Brown, John B. Pryor |
| Prize amount: | $ 56,600 |
| Greatest wins, titles and awards | |
| title | |
| Leading Sire 1860–1874, 1876, 1878 | |
| Awards | |
| Induction into the Hall of Fame at the National Museum of Racing | |
Lexington (born March 17, 1850 in Lexington , Fayette County, Kentucky , † July 1, 1875 in Wallace, Woodford County, Kentucky) was a racehorse and the most successful breeding stallion in the second half of the 19th century in the United States.
Life
The stallion was bred by Dr. Elisha Warfield, one of the founders of the Kentucky Association Race Track, was bred and initially named Darley after the famous stallion Darley Arabian . It initially started for Warfield and its partner Burbridge and was sold after its first two races for a price of 2,500 dollars. Its next owner, Richard Ten Broeck, renamed the horse Lexington and had it trained in Natchez, Mississippi to prepare it for the Great State Post Stakes of 1854. Lexington won this race by a large margin.
On April 2, 1855, he set a record of four miles on the Metaire Course in New Orleans . In total, Lexington only took part in seven races, of which he won six and finished one in second. His racing career had to end in 1855 because, as his father had done, he went blind. Therefore he was later used as a breeding stallion. Until 1858 he was on John Harper's Nantura Stock Farm in Midway, Kentucky . Then it was sold to RA Alexander for $ 15,000 - an unprecedented selling price for an American horse - and was taken to Woodburn Farm. From 1861 to 1874 he was Leading Sire in the USA, also in 1876 and 1878. He died of catarrh.
progeny
Lexington's descendants included Preakness , after which a race at the Pimlico racetrack, the Preakness Stakes , is named. 15 of the top 25 winners in the Kentucky Derby were descendants of Lexington and so were nine of the top 15 winners in the Travers Stakes. These included Kentucky, who won the 1864 race, and Duke of Magenta, the 1878 winner. Duke of Magenta also won the Withers Stakes, Preakness Stakes, and Belmont Stakes. The Preakness Stakes was also won by Lexington's offspring Tom Ochiltree and Shirley. Other important descendants of Lexington were Asteroid, Norfolk, Harry Bassett and Sultana.
Other descendants of Lexington's racing might have been successful, but numerous horses were requisitioned by the army during the Civil War and died in the fighting. In addition, Woodburn Farm was taken by the Northerners, who took many horses with them from there. According to some sources Lexington was among these animals and was in Illinois until the end of the war and was then able to return.
Whereabouts
After his death on July 1, 1875 on Woodburn Farm in Woodford County, Kentucky , he was buried in a coffin in front of his stable. Three years later, its last owner, AJ Alexander, donated the horse's bones to the United States National Museum . The skeleton was exhumed and dissected by Professor NA Ward and is now in the National Museum of American History at the Behring Center , where it is listed under catalog number 16020.
A Lexington bronze statue Gwen Reardon made from photographs and the horse's skeleton is in Thoroughbred Park in Lexington.
Lexington was among the first horses to be admitted to the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1955.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Leading Sires of North America on the Thoroughbred Heritage site
- ↑ a b c Lexington on Thoroughbred Heritage
- ↑ a b c Hall of Fame of the National Museum of Racing
- ^ Lexington on the Smithsonian website
- ↑ Thoroughbred Park in Lexington on Gwenn Reardon's website ( memento of the original from November 20, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
