by Barbaraanne Helberg

Created on: July 18, 2011

Early Thoroughbred horse racing in America was represented by business people and gamblers who bought into the Sport of Kings by way of searching out the speediest and heartiest horses available for purchase. They were men and women of competitive spirit who helped found and establish the Thoroughbred race that would become the most famous in the world, the Kentucky Derby.

The Kentucky Derby was established in the 1930s as the first of the three races that make up the American Triple Crown series.

From H. Price McGrath's Aristides, the Derby's first winner, to Harry Payne Whitney's first filly winner, Regret, in 1915, to the cosmetic king Elizabeth Arden of Maine Chance Farm who won the Run for the Roses with Tom Smith-trained Jet Pilot in 1947, to the dominant runners from Calumet Farm in three decades, to the Thoroughbreds of Robert and Beverly Lewis in the 1990s, the owners of talented and speedy horses have supplied the running fuel that has sustained the Sport of Kings through 137 Kentucky Derbys.  

Colonel Meriwether Lewis Clark, Jr. was the first visionary to formulate the Derby competition which began in 1875. By 1915, Louisville tailor Colonel Matt Winn had helped revive the financially strapped race. The longshot victor Donerail in 1913, the popular gelding Old Rosebud (1914) and Regret in 1915 set the Derby on a course for success that has continued to the present day.  

McGrath entered a powerful runner named Chesapeake and a less known chestnut son of Leamington called Aristides in the first Derby against 13 other rivals. When it became apparent that Chesapeake was wearing thin and Aristides remained full of run, McGrath waved to his jockey to finish with Aristides, while the favored Chesapeake was left to fade. The win reversal earned McGrath plaudits of genius.

Whitney and Colonel Edward Riley Bradley were great rivals in the early days of American Thoroughbred racing. Their horses frequently ran against one another and made particular fanfare in the Kentucky Derby. In 1921, the pair of owners won the first four positions in the Derby. Bradley triumphed in the race with Behave Yourself and finished second with Black Servant, while Whitney took third with Prudery and claimed the fourth spot with Tryster.

With his trainer, H.J. "Dick" Thompson, Bradley won four Derbys: 1921 (Behave Yourself), 1926 (Bubbling Over), 1932 (Bubbling Over son Burgoo King), and 1933

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