Horse series: the Kentucky Association and Lexington’s race course

Its founders included Henry Clay, Jesse Bledsoe, Dr. Elisha Warfield, and Thomas F. Marshall, and the Keeneland Library’s account says about fifty members met at Mrs. Keen’s Inn with the aim “to improve the breed of horses by encouraging the sports of the turf.”

Between 1828 and 1834 the Association bought 65 acres at what is now the east end of Fifth Street at Race Street in Lexington and built the Lexington Race Course, a one-mile dirt track with a grandstand and stables. The Phoenix Hotel Handicap was first run there in 1831; as the Phoenix Stakes it is now the oldest stakes race in the United States. Lexington’s racing had long depended on enslaved grooms, trainers, and riders, and after emancipation Black horsemen stayed central at the track: future Hall of Fame jockey Isaac Murphy won his first race there on Sept. 16, 1876, and Jimmy Winkfield got his start there in 1898.

Money troubles forced a sale in 1890. The Association closed the track in the spring of 1933, the same spring the Keeneland Association incorporated to build a new course outside town, and the old grounds were torn down in 1935. Keeneland copied the old track’s gates.

The site is now part of Lexington’s East End, around William Wells Brown Elementary School, where street names recall the track. The map pin marks the Fifth and Race streets area.