INTRODUCTION

According to the 2012 Kentucky Equine Survey, conducted by the University of Kentucky, the equine industry in Kentucky generated a total economic impact of almost $3 billion and created more than 40,000 jobs in the year prior to the survey. There were about 54,000 thoroughbred horses, 42,000 quarter horses, 36,000 Tennessee walking horses, 14,000 saddlebreds, 9,500 standardbreds and 12,500 Kentucky mountain horse breeds as well as ponies, draft horses, Arabians and other breeds. In the total were almost 4,000 breeding stallions. Lexington-Fayette County has the most horses, with some 89,000, followed by Bourbon, Woodford and Scott Counties, all in the central Bluegrass Region.

This book digs into history to find out how it all started. Here you will find that local racetracks once were almost as prevalent as high school football fields, that horse races were run on the main streets of early towns, that Henry Clay was as good a horse breeder as he was a politician and that African American jockeys were our country’s first professional athletes, among other tidbits of equine history.