Celebrating Lexington. Not the city, but the record-setting horse by the same name
Editor’s Note: As Lexington celebrates the 250th anniversary of its founding, the Herald-Leader and kentucky.com each day throughout 2025 will share interesting facts about our hometown. Compiled by Liz Carey, all are notable moments in the city’s history - some funny, some sad, others heartbreaking or celebratory, and some just downright strange.
March 17, 1850: While we’re all familiar with the name Lexington as a city, it’s also the name of one of the city’s most successful horse sires in thoroughbred racing.
Lexington, the horse, was originally named Darley, and he was bred on Dr. Elisha Warfield’s Farm.
Warfield was Cassius Marcellus Clay’s father-in-law. Darley was foaled at Warfield’s stud farm, The Meadows, in 1850, the product of two horses, Boston, the sire, and Alice Carneal.
In 1853, Darley ran his first race and left a lasting impression. Richard Ten Broeck, a Louisiana horseman, and a group of investors including Kentuckians Abe Buford and Junius Ward, purchased Darley for $5,000.
To put that in perspective, $5,000 in 1853 is the equivalent of more than $206,000 today. Ten Broeck renamed him Lexington and put him in races. He went on to win six of his seven races, mostly in four-mile heats.
However, Lexington developed rapid onset blindness, cutting short his racing career. Unable to make money from racing him, Ten Broeck sold Lexington to R. A. Alexander of Woodburn Farm who put him out to stud.
Alexander paid $15,000 for Lexington in 1856 – more than $560,000 today. At the time, it was the highest price ever paid for a thoroughbred.
At Woodburn, over the course of 16 years, Lexington sired hundreds of foals. In lists ranking horses that produced the most race winners, Lexington rose to the top.
City officials on Monday celebrated that big blue horse that’s the symbol of Lexington the city is more than just a logo. It’s a tribute to one of the fastest thoroughbreds in history.
Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton paid tribute to Lexington the horse on his 175th birthday. His legacy, she said, continues to be felt in the horse racing world.
One of his wins, the Phoenix Hotel Handicap in 1853, set records. On April 2, 1853, Lexington ran four miles in just 7 minutes and 19.75 seconds. He quickly became known as the fastest racehorse of the day.
His match against Lecomte, who was also sired by Boston, on April 14, 1855, went on to be considered one of the greatest match-ups of the 19th century.
“For 20 years, Lexington held the title of fastest horse in the world,” Gorton said. “He was an endurance horse with unlimited power who could run the equivalent of a sprint marathon.”
Speaking next to Tapit, one of Lexington’s descendants, Gorton said the horses are part of a legacy of horse racing and horse breeding in central Kentucky.
“We have a very long, famous history in the thoroughbred history in Lexington, and this horse is one reason why,” Gorton said during a press conference at Gainesway Farm.
For a while, he was known as the “blind hero of Woodburn,” and many attribute Lexington, the city, becoming the horse breeding center of the racing world, with the success of Lexington, the horse.
Among Lexington’s sons and daughters was the undefeated Asteroid and Norfolk, as well as Idlewild in 1857; Cincinnati in 1860, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s favorite horse; Neecy Hale and Belle of Nelson, both winners of the Kentucky Oaks, (1873 and 1876); and Duke of Magenta, winner of the Preakness Stakes, the Belmont Stakes, the Travers Stakes and a U.S. Racing Hall of Fame inductee.
In all, Lexington sired 236 winners that won 1,176 races, placed 348 times and showed 42 times winning a total of $1,159,321 in prize money.
Lexington died in 1875 and was buried at Woodburn, but in 1878, his bones were exhumed and sent to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.
The Smithsonian used Lexington as part of its exhibition “On Time” in 1999, at the National Museum of American History to illustrate the history of the first mass-produced stopwatch that split time into fractions of a second.
In 2010, the Smithsonian loaned his skeleton to the International Museum of the Horse at the Kentucky Horse Park for the World Equestrian Games. His skeleton was on display between 2010 and 2013.
“Lexington left a powerful lineage filled with champions including War Admiral, Citation, Affirmed, Secretariat and Justify,” Gorton said.
“Lexington’s tradition of siring champions lives on in his descendant Tapit… Horses like Lexington and Tapit keep that legacy (of horse breeding in Lexington) going.”
Have a question or story idea related to Lexington’s 250-year history? Let us know at 250LexKy@gmail.com
This story was originally published March 17, 2025 at 4:00 AM.