Off To The Races: Beginning of Kentucky Derby

On May seventeenth, eighteen seventy five, in front of ten thousand people, the very first Kentucky Derby was ran won by aristides by two Lynks, starting a tradition that still is going on to this day. In the Kentucky Derby. We're gonna dive into history today on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide to a rapid deep dive into sports history every day. Now, the Kentucky Derby is known now as the greatest two minutes in sports. But where did it come from and how did it all get started? Well, horse racing has been around for thousands of years, but it got started in the United States in Salisbury, New York, in sixteen sixty five. That's right, It's been around before the country was even around. In eighteen sixty eight, shortly following the Civil War is when horse racing really took off. And it took off even more with the American stud Book, which was a book promoting organized horse racing and keeping track of all the thorough breds throughout the country so you could track a horse's lineage, which we still use to this day. You can track people all the way back to Secretariat and beyond. But the Kentucky Derby itself really got started in seventeen seventy three when the College of William and Mary sponsored a survey of the area that would become Louisville in the site of the Kentucky Derby, and just five years later George Rogers Clark would settle there and start building the town in seventeen seventy eight and name it Louisville after Louis the sixteenth of France. And Kentucky became a major player in the world of horse racing, having multiple horse races ran throughout the state. But one of the descendants that started Louisville was Meriwether Lewis Clark, who was not only a descendant of the founder of Louisville, but also a descendant the famous Lewis and Clark explorers that were the first to make it all the way to the Pacific Ocean. And he was lucky enough that earlier in his life he got to experience horse racing not only in America, but he made his way to Europe to experience a horse racing there, and he became enamored with the Epsom Derby, which was one of the most famous Derbys in England, which was named after the Earl of Derby, one of the descendants to the British thrones, was and started in seventeen eighty and has been ran ever since and is Britain's richest flat horse race and also known as the British Triple Crown, which includes the two thousand New Guinea Steaks and the Saint Luger Steaks as well as the as well as the Derby which they shortened it, and the first British Triple Crown was won by West Australian, which is a horse, not a person. In Britain, the Triple Crown is just as popular as it is in America at our Triple Crown, which is known as the Kentucky Derby, the Priackness Stakes in the Belmont Stakes. Both Triple Crowns are three year old thoroughbred series of races and just as predominant to win. But after experiencing horse racing in Europe, Meriwether Clark came back to America at only twenty six years old and wanted to start his own jockey club, which he did with prenominant citizens in the area, and he sold memberships to help fund a race track in the area, and he sold about three hundred and twenty memberships for one hundred dollars each, which is about two eight hundred dollars two day in twenty twenty four. And the location was perfect as the Louisville Nashville railroad tracks went right through the area, which would make it easy for horses to be transported to run races in Louisville. And they wouldn't only run this one race. See back then, jockey clubs were more of casino type things where you could gamble on races, and so they would constantly have races going on with a major push for this Kentucky Derby, and so in eighteen seventy four they began to construct a race track on eighty acres of land that Clark had leased from two uncles of his named John and Henry Churchill. And they planned to make this and almost as close to the Epsom Derby as they could, even making it one and a half miles the same distance. And it was as simple set up because all you needed was something to keep the horses in there and stands for the fans, So it wasn't a huge overtaking, and they finished the track within a year and they were ready set to run their first derby, which the Kentucky Derby is named after the British Derby with the same name, as he really did love that distance in that race. So we come to May seventeenth, eighteen seventy five at the Lewis Jockey Club, fifteen horses set to race, and of those fifteen horses, fourteen are jockeyed by African Americans. At the time, being a jockey was a good position for an African American as Slaver he had just ended and it was looked down at the time as a lesser than job, so was one they could get and eventually do make good money at so at the time it was a predominantly black profession. And that first race, Oliver Lewis riding Aristides, took off and was able to break away and able to win in front of a crowd of ten thousand people by two lengths, beating second place Volcano with a time of two minutes thirty seven seconds, which at that time was a world record at the one and a half mile course this particular derby every year they actually shortened it to one and a quarter mile because many thought horses couldn't handle that distance that early in the year. Also, some other major changes that came to was in eighteen eighty three they changed the name to Churchhill Downs unofficially, and they would make it official in nineteen twenty eight, naming it after the uncles that loaned Clark the land. And in eighteen ninety five, due to so much interest in the horse race, they actually spent one hundred thousand dollars to add a whole new grandstand on the opposite side of the track. And the sport continued to grow every year, and in eighteen ninety one, Isaac Murphy became the first consecutive winner of the Kentucky Derby and also went on to become the first black millionaire athlete. And this is the moment that changed everything because he was so he was having so much success, They saw the money he was making, and the white culture took over this position, and by nineteen eleven there was almost no African Americans jockeying in the sport. Just shows you how different times were back then. But in nineteen oh four they began to call it the Tournament of the Roses for the blanket of pink and white roses they put around the horse after he won, and they continued to grow with new technology as radio became popular. In nineteen twenty five, they broadcast the first time the race, the Kentucky Derby on the radio, getting almost six million listeners that first broadcast and it's where the term the Run of the Roses was actually made for the first time, and in nineteen twelve, John Campden Jr. Proposed that they have a Triple Crown of their own, having the best races in Kentucky. Now this was later not taken into effect, but they continued the term Triple Crown as they connected it with the Preakness and Belmont later to help grow the horse racing and even try to get a quadruple stakes including the Douglas Park race track, but it did not materialize, so they started this Triple Crown in less than six years later. They had their first winner in Sir Barton in nineteen nineteen, and in nineteen thirty one they decided to permanently set a date so that the Triple Crown could be ran at a regular schedule, as they had moved the dates around and it had made it challenging for horses to run all three races, and so they made the Derby the first race of the Triple Crown always happened on the first Saturday of May, and just seven years later, in nineteen thirty eight, they created the infield with a tunnel under the track in the grandstands, giving you the chance to have admission in the infield as well for only fifty cents, And in nineteen fifty two it was the first time the race was ever televised to the nation, having almost fifteen million viewers that first race. And in nineteen seventy three, Secretariat, who we talked about on on previous episode, set the record for the fastest time in the Kentucky Derby history at one minute fifty nine seconds, a record that has never been broken to this day. And in nineteen eighty six Churchill Downs Racetrack was declared a National Landmark. And today it is a huge moment as celebrities flock every year to this race and the hats get bigger and bigger as the crowds push almost two hundred thousand people every year with over fifteen million dollars in bedding and done every single year, making the Kentucky Derby, one of the biggest race in the United States. Now what this shows you is you don't have to be the first to be the best. The Kentucky Derby was essentially a copy of the Derby in Britain. We even took the name from them, the distance had it set up exactly the same. And though the Derby is just successful in Britain, the Kentucky Derby is successful here because we love horse racing. Yes, we do love to gamble, but horse racing is just exciting something that we just inherently love and many of us if we watch any horse race, it is the Kentucky Derby because it's the greatest two minutes in sports. So don't be afraid to not be the first, but to be someone, but to make it your own. And if you have a great topic you want us to do for one of our shows, you can contact us at Daily Sports hisstoryat gmail dot com. We'd love to hear any sports moments that you would love us to cover, and come back tomorrow for more Daily Sports History.