Horse

by Geraldine Brooks

Horse farms like the Meadows and Woodburn prospered on the plundered work and extraordinary talent of Black grooms, trainers, and jockeys. Only recently has their central role in the wealth creation of the antebellum thoroughbred industry begun to be researched and fully acknowledged.

When I looked for a tour guide in the Bluegrass, luck led me to Mary Anne Squires and a true insider’s access to the backstretch, breeding sheds, pastures, and manorial estates of Lexington’s homeplace. Her husband Jim’s account of their unlikely success as breeders of a Kentucky Derby winner, Horse of a Different Color (Public Affairs, 2002), is by turns hilarious and horrifying.

Together with Bizu, we traveled to Kentucky, where our research often intersected in intriguing ways as he followed the trail of Frederick Law Olmsted for his book Spying on the South (Penguin Press, 2019).

Back home, Tony’s quips would keep me on task if I procrastinated: “Doesn’t look like Horse is galloping to the finish line today.”

Williamson trained Lexington’s colt Asteroid, who was undefeated in his racing career, and went on to train Aristides, the winner of the inaugural Kentucky Derby.

Warfield was named by Thoroughbred Heritage as “one of the most important early figures in Kentucky racing and breeding” and was a founder of the Lexington Jockey Club. A businessman, farmer, medical practitioner, and professor of surgery and obstetrics, he delivered Mary Todd Lincoln. In 1945, his stud farm, the Meadows, became a residential subdivision of that name in the Lexington suburbs. His graceful sixteen-room brick mansion was razed in 1960.