Hidden History of Horse Racing in Kentucky by Foster Ockerman Jr

Author:Foster Ockerman Jr.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2019-10-05T16:00:00+00:00

LEXINGTON TRACKS

To say that there was a racetrack on every block of early Lexington would not be entirely accurate; but it would not be far from the truth.

The first racetrack in Lexington was not an officially sanctioned track. In fact, officials disapproved.

The custom had begun of racing on Main Street.

It is not known whether the practice was the result of any organized group. Thornton notes that Perrin’s 1882 History of Fayette County reports that a James Bray opened a tavern near the present Jefferson Street, which had been on the western edge of the town, and began running races.276

The Lexington Jockey Club was organized in 1787 to conduct races on an organized basis and according to its rules. Its races were run on the town Commons, a strip of land along the Town Branch, the middle fork of the Elkhorn River.277 One historian reports that the first race conducted by the club was held in October 1789 according to the “rules of New Market [sic]” (England).278 But if someone wanted to race and didn’t want to conform to the club’s rules, or wanted to race horses that didn’t meet the entry criteria, or the club was not conducting a formal meet at the time, there was always Main Street.

Lexington was formally chartered as a town under Virginia law by that General Assembly on May 6, 1782, providing for a board of trustees to govern the town, lay off streets and other powers.279 In 1790, the trustees approved the repurchase of two lots of land along Town Branch and the sale of unappropriated land at the east end of town to provide funds to pay for the land and to pay for “digging a canal to carry the branch straight through the town, also to have a row of lively locust trees planted on each side of the canal.”280 This provided a much better venue for horse racing. The hillside rising up from across the stream provided a good vantage point for spectators.

On October 21, 1793, the board of trustees for Lexington met to discuss the practice of horse racing on Main Street, which the trustees viewed as a “growing evil” and, considering that they were without sufficient authority to ban the practice without citizen support, passed a resolution calling for a public vote.281 Evidently, the votes favored a change, for on December 21, 1793, the trustees approved another resolution prohibiting the “running or racing of horses in the streets or highways within the limits of said town,” prohibited the showing of stud horses in same, established a schedule of fines for violations and relegated the stud horses to part of Water Street, along the

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