LAND of PLENTY

other horses in training at various tracks.” Tus did that New York Times article fesh out its earlier estimate that Haggin “owned three times as many Toroughbreds as any [other] man in the world.” By that time, late in Haggin’s career, about 1,000 of his horses had been quartered at his grand and elegant Elmendorf Farm. Tat enclave covered some 8,700 acres during part of the years Haggin owned it. For real open spaces, however, the breeder also had at hand 44,000 acres at his Rancho del Paso in California.

Te name James Ben Ali Haggin suggested a rather exotic personal pedigree somewhat at odds with the fact he was born in Harrodsburg, Kentucky. Te birth year was 1822. Haggin graduated from Centre College in the nearby town of Danville and was apparently headed toward a law career. Ten the lure of gold raised a detour fag, and Haggin sought clientele in California. Soon, however, Haggin became afliated with a treasure hunter, Lloyd Tevis, and the relationship moved toward partnership rather than adviser and client. In time, they acquired Rancho del Paso near Sacramento, the property covering 44,000 acres. Also, Haggin stepped in to salvage the fnances of U.S. Sen. George Randolph Hearst, whose appreciation and loyalty added a third associate to the Haggin-Tevis combine. Te threesome developed what was apparently the largest mining partnership the era produced. Te locations of their holdings spread through California, Nevada, Montana, Utah, and South Dakota.

For all the glitter of gold, copper was the bedrock of their fortune. As reviewed in “Te Great Ones,” one of the projects was backing Marcus Daly’s idea to develop a copper mine near Butte, Montana. Tis led to the Anaconda Copper Mine and other sites. Bouyea recalled the partners were thought to have “controlled 80 per cent of the world’s copper supply at one time.”

Haggin also ventured on his own and invested in another mining operation in Peru. A story ofen repeated illustrates the sheer depth of investment required in activating a venturesome vision in that time and in that business: Haggin had to spend $2 million just to build a railroad to ship copper from his Cerro de Pasco mine in Peru!

In due time, Haggin’s success brought public understanding of an exotic ethnic heritage his name suggested. Te 1914 “Bloodstock Breeders’ Review” looked back for the purpose of compiling his obituary. As a youth, it pointed out, he had been “something of a puzzle to his contemporaries.” An Eastern strain in his pedigree was suggested by “his intensely dark hair and eyes,” and his complexion had led to all sorts of conjectures “regarding his ancestry. When he gave the name Ben Ali to his son, he was at once pronounced to be a Turk.” Te publication provided additional ethnic details, to wit, that James Ben Ali Haggin indeed had Turkish heritage but also had “English, Irish, and Greek blood fowing in his veins.”

His father’s family had migrated from Ireland to Virginia in 1775, and the father married a daughter of Ibrahim Ben Ali. Te latter was a Turkish Army ofcer who practiced medicine afer immigrating to Baltimore, Maryland. Afer that daughter, Adeline, married into the Haggin family of Harrodsburg, Kentucky, she and her husband had James, along with seven other children.

“Te Bloodstock Breeders’ Review” (BBR) for much of the 20th century was a revered, hardbound volume. It was published by British Bloodstock Agency, which grew to be a giant in the international breeding and sales arenas. In 1914, the BBR was in its third year of existence and was a quarterly but was issued at the end of the year in one volume. By the time of Haggin’s obituary article, it was also a bit of history that he had named a racehorse Ben Ali, in honor of the son and thereby raced the 1886 Kentucky Derby winner.

The Lure Of Horses

Originally, Rancho del Paso was largely devoted to pasturing sheep, but afer a friend advised Tevis to raise trotting horses, the use of the property was expanded. Tis led to the acquisition of some Toroughbreds, and the Rancho del Paso team aimed high. Te BBR reported Tevis failed in his attempt to purchase the prominent stallion Norfolk from Californian Teodore Winters. Later, however, Haggin bought some mares from Winters when the latter moved from California to Nevada.

Bouyea thinks Haggin established a Toroughbred operation in 1873, and by the early 1880s “the ranch was known as the world’s