LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – A line in the dirt. The beat of a drum. A red flag falling. That’s how the first Kentucky Derby started. Well, it actually started before that, long before 13 colts and two fillies lined up to contest the first Kentucky Derby at the brand-new Louisville Jockey Club racing grounds in May of 1875.
But specifically, William Johnson, president of the Blood Horse Association in Nashville and the Derby’s official starter, bent down and carved a line into the dirt. Then a string was drawn across the track, and it was time. A drumbeat was the signal. And they were off.
It’s only natural, with Kentucky Derby No. 150 barreling down the backside and preparing to turn and head straight for us, to think for a moment about how it all started.
The origins of The Kentucky Derby might seem humble by today’s standards, but the race was founded to be what it has become – the preeminent thoroughbred race in America. Meriweather Lewis Clark, tasked with returning racing to a city that had been without it for several years, toured some of the finest race venues in Europe in 1872, then came back to create what he envisioned would be more than a race, but a grand spectacle.
Who could’ve imagined how grand? Likely not Clark, even though he was well-born and enjoyed the finer things in life. He’d moved to Louisville and been raised by his wealthy uncles, John and Henry Churchill, after the death of his mother. Racing was in the blood of Louisvillians. So much so, in fact, that they’d taken to racing their horses down Market Street downtown. It wasn’t ideal.
Having studied the European courses, Clark formed a group called the Louisville Jockey Club and Driving Park Association, and with 320 investors at $100 each fashioned a racetrack on 80 acres leased from his uncles, situated conveniently near the L&N Railroad line. There, a track was laid out, the racing oval geographically where it exists today, and a clubhouse and grandstand then judged to be the second largest in the nation, seating 3,500.
It was there in 1875 where the first Kentucky Derby was run, and has been run every year since, the oldest continuously held major sporting event in the United States. But among the elements that make the race iconic today, some key pieces were missing.
SOME MISSING ELEMENTS
First, it was not run on the first Saturday in May. It was run on the third Monday in May, race No. 2 on a four-race card. And it was run at the distance of 1 ½ miles, not its current distance. First post that day was 2:30.
There were no roses. The first garland of roses wouldn’t be presented for another 21 years. Nor was there a gold trophy. That wouldn’t come along for another 49 years.
Nobody sang “My Old Kentucky Home.” The song had been around for 22 years, and if there had been a Billboard chart in the day, it would’ve been near the top for a time. But its first playing at the Derby was 55 years away.
There were no betting windows. Wagers were placed through bookmakers in what was called a “betting shed” that was off limits to women.
There was no starting gate. Horses were walked to the starting line, then the tap of a drum and the drop of a red flag signaled the start.
The racetrack would not be known as Churchill Downs for a few years. Its first official use as the name of the track in connection with the Derby was 1883.
And there were no Twin Spires. Those were an architectural addition to the next clubhouse, which would be built on the other side of the track for the 21st running of the Derby in 1895. The original clubhouse was on what now is the stable side of the track, and patrons had to shield their eyes from the sun to watch afternoon races. Inside the clubhouse, Clark had an apartment, at which he liked to host parties. But his most lavish parties came on Derby nights at the posh Pendennis Club downtown. On Derby days, guests would watch races from the porch, often listening to waltzes by Johann Strauss.
FAMILIAR TRADITIONS
Which brings us to some elements we have come to recognize as synonymous with the famous race.
The infield was open for fans. Mule-driven streetcars and fans in horse-drawn carriages rolled into the infield to watch the races. One child in attendance that day, Matt Winn, later would turn the Derby into a staple of American sports. Or, at least, “Colonel” Winn said he watched the first race from the infield aboard his dad’s grocery wagon.
The morning of the first Derby, Louisvillians woke up to a republished 1867 dispatch on the front page of The Courier-Journal, datelined London and headlined, “England’s Derby Day.” The sub-headline set the tone: “A vivid description of the great racing event across waters, which it is meant to duplicate at Louisville course today.”
“The Derby is the day of the people, or rather everybody’s day,” the story read. “It is like Mardi Gras at New Orleans, or the Carnival at Rome. London closes up shop on the Derby Day, and the streets are deserted. Parliament adjourns over, the shoemaker deserts his last, the tailor lets his goose go cold, the doctor throws physic to the dogs, the merchant closes his ledger, the lawyer leaves the law to take care of itself, and the clerk has holiday. All hasten to the Epsom Downs. Drunkenness for the time ceases to be a reproach.”
Louisville, it should be said, did not have to be told twice. It had to get one of those.
On the first Derby day, the L&N Railroad offered excursion trains to the races – round-trip fares from Indiana were 55 cents, from the L&N Depot downtown 25 cents. The Short Line advertised one-way fares of 25 cents and round-trip tickets for 30 from its depot at the corner of Brook and Jefferson Streets with easy access East.
Out-of-towners, though not nearly as many as today to be sure, could find a room at the Galt House at the corner of First and Main, already in its second edition after the first was destroyed by fire, for $3.
A quarter-stretch badge for the races that day was $2. A grandstand ticket was $1. Members of Louisville’s Jockey Club got in at half-price.
The crowd for that first Derby was estimated at 10,000 (though The New York Times put it at 12,000).
RACE DAY
The day dawned sunny and clear. The first Derby ran in near perfect conditions, over a fast track with a temperature of 68 degrees.
And, of course, there were the horses. Fifteen starters, 13 colts, two fillies. Of the jockeys, 13 were African American. The favorite in the race, Chesapeake, was owned by H. Price McGrath, who had opened the first gambling house in the American South. There was Ten Broeck. He had won a race in Lexington a week prior, but had been off in losing to Chesapeake just three days after that. The Derby would be his third race in 10 days – not unusual in those days. And there was Aristides, also owned by McGrath, who was in the race as a “rabbit,” there to burn up the early fractions to allow the late-running Chesapeake to break through in the stretch.
Aristides, however, went to the front early, did his job, then kept running. Ansel Williamson, his Black trainer, was perhaps the best trainer of his time. Born into slavery in 1806, he worked on horse farms and trained racehorses in the deep south, and was sold twice before being purchased by Robert A. Alexander, owner of Woodburn Stud near Midway, Ky. Thus, it can be sadly stated that in the first Kentucky Derby, the winning trainer had been sold more times than the winning colt.
Aristides had, according to some reports, cut his forelegs during his previous race, a last-place finish to Ten Broeck the previous Saturday. But such was Williamson’s skill as a horseman that the colt was ready a week later for a run at history. Among the oldest, most-prized possessions in the Kentucky Derby Museum today is a pair of leather “booties” worn by Aristides, maybe for just such a purpose.
His jockey was Oliver Lewis, a Black rider born in Lexington and just 18 or 19 years old at the time of the race. Little is known of Lewis’ life before or after his historic ride. But on this day in 1875, aboard Aristides, Lewis found himself on the lead and trying to hold back his mount, waiting for his more celebrated stablemate to make his late move.
It never came. Reports from the day said from his position near the head of the stretch, McGrath began waving and shouting at Lewis to go on, and the pair did, thundering down the stretch for a victory of nearly two lengths in a time of 2:37 ¾, the fastest mile and a half ever run by a thoroughbred in the U.S. to that point.
“It is the gallant Aristides, heir to a mighty name, that strides with a sweeping gallop toward victory,” The Courier-Journal reported. “. . . the air trembles and vibrates again with the ringing cheers that followed.”
We do not have, in the post-race reporting, any thought or immediate insight from the jockey or trainer.
But we have plenty of description of the color and pageantry of the day. “Colonel” Clark, age 29 on that first Derby day, made sure the well-to-do were in attendance at the race, and conspicuously so.
THE IMPACT
Many well-connected people came to the racetrack, dressed to the nines, and Clark sought to make sure they were described in detail by reporters present, hoping to boost the prestige and glamour of the fledgling enterprise.
“There was gathered together in the Grand Stand such an array of loveliness, drawn from the city, town and farm-house throughout all the borders of Kentucky, and with representatives from every state in the Union, as has never before been seen at a similar or perhaps any occasion in the West,” The Courier-Journal’s account of Derby Day read the next morning, perhaps laying it on thick, but certainly painting the picture Clark had intended. “. . . We dare assert that the most glowing description given to this feature of yesterday’s gathering can not be too extravagant to adequately picture the panorama, constantly shifting with its varied and brilliant colors during five hours of the day.”
The day made an immediate impression. Clark had made sure the race received ample national notice. The New York Times carried an account of the first Derby. It may only have been four paragraphs tucked away on Page 5, but it noted the fine weather, large crowd and commented that the first meeting of the Louisville Jockey Club opened “under more favorable auspices than was hoped by the most sanguine of its managers.”
The words of The Courier-Journal reporter had proved prophetic, indeed as Clark, track officials, and all involved with the first Kentucky Derby intended them to be.
“Today,” the piece read, “will be historic to Kentucky annals, as the first Derby Day of what patentees to be a long series of annual turf festivities which we confidently expect our grandchildren 100 years hence to celebrate in glorious continuous rejoicings.”
The stars of that first day receded into history, some more quickly than others*. But the Kentucky Derby, of course, has flourished, as has Churchill Downs. Both were designed to be the very place they have become, the center of the racing world in the United States, and internationally, to be on full display for the 150th edition of the race on May 4.
And there is comfort, perhaps, and insight in this excerpt from The Courier-Journal’s recap of the first Derby, a reminder that, a few things, anyway, have remained the same from the first Derby to now.
“Cigars, champagne, silk hats and suppers were lost and won ad libitum. Between beats and in the interludes of the programme the enthusiasm of the moment carried many of the spectators far beyond the bounds of prudence, and when the fun was over, sundry depleted pocket-books contained only lessons in their empty void.”
Celebrate, anyway, Kentucky, in 150 years of continuous rejoicings.
*POSTSCRIPT
- Clark, the grandson of the great American explorer William Clark, had various run-ins and financial troubles with the track, was replaced as jockey club president and went state to state working as a steward. He wrote many horse racing rules and pioneered the stakes system. In the stock market crash of 1893 he lost a great deal of money, and given to bouts of depression, ended his own life with a gunshot wound on April 22, 1899. He is buried in Cave Hill Cemetery, next to his uncle, John Churchill.
- Oliver Lewis would never race in another Derby, and little is known of his life. He’s believed to have worked for a while longer as a jockey, and then a horse trainer. He lived into his late sixties, and is buried in African Cemetery No. 2 on East Seventh Street in Lexington. The exact location is not certain. His name is not on a monument to him.
- Ansel Williamson, the great trainer, would go on to win the Belmont Stakes in 1875 with another horse, Calvin, and also won the Travers that year, but within four years would begin showing signs of dementia. He died on June 18, 1881. Williamson, during the Civil War, once stared down the notorious William Quantrill, whose raiders were bent on stealing horses from Woodburn Farm, in particular an undefeated 3-year-old named Asteroid, trained by Williamson. Facing a deadly threat, Williamson had the presence of mind to find another horse, of roughly the same size and coloring as the star colt, and passed it off successfully. Likely saving his life, and the fortunes of his owner. “Old Ansel,” has he was often known, appended his last name after emancipation. He was inducted into the Racing Hall of Fame in 1988.
- Williamson’s death was a blow to the owner for whom he worked, H. Price McGrath. Outspoken and often said to be belligerent when inebriated, McGrath succumbed to liver disease and died less than a month after his trainer, on July 5, 1881.
- Ten Broeck, who faltered on that first Derby Day, went on to dominate Kentucky racing. He was int the first class of the National Horse Racing Hall of Fame and Museum, in fact. When he died in 1887 at the age of 14, he would become the first thoroughbred in Kentucky to be memorialized with a headstone.
- Aristides was unsuccessful at stud, and after McGraths death passed through a series of owners. For a time he was stabled in Hebron, Ind., then a series of farms outside St. Louis. Near the end of his life, Mark Shrager writes in his 2023 book, “The First Kentucky Derby,” Aristides was sold for a mere $100, before being resold for $200 quickly. He died in his stall while preparations were being made to euthanize him on June 21, 1893. Churchill Downs has named a stakes race after him, and a large lounge in its clubhouse. A live-size statue of him by Carl Regutti was placed in the Churchill Downs Paddock Tulip Garden in 1987, and today resides outside the track’s Paddock Entrance, for all to pass on their way into Churchill Downs.
Copyright 2024 WDRB Media. All Rights Reserved.
