LAND of PLENTY

(Te positive upshot was that Churchill Downs ownership and management were replaced, and the master promoter Col. Matt Winn wound up in charge. By the time he was writing the book “Down the Stretch” in 1944, Winn could look back on those tumultuous years as a part of his opportunity to lead the Kentucky Derby. Indeed, by then he had been instrumental in guiding the race to a state of theretofore unimagined prestige and afection within the hearts of American Toroughbred owners of all stripes and regional identities.)

A wrinkle of the day was the owner of Elmendorf Farm in Kentucky was ofering the farm at auction, but the auction would take place in New York. Te Easton Company announced the farm owner, C.J. Enright, had decided to disperse his stock and the farm. Easton Company set the date as Oct. 23 and announced the auction would take place at the Morris Park racetrack in Westchester, New York. Tat time and place already had been designated for the auction of the renowned Brookdale Stud of New Jersey. Tat particular dispersal would be in its third day by Oct. 23.

Te Toroughbred Record of 1897 commented, “Here in Kentucky it is scarcely necessary to write in detail of Elmendorf and its phenomenal achievements as a nursery of Toroughbreds” during three distinct eras of its ownership. Further, the farm was described as involving “5441⁄2 acres of the choicest bluegrass and wooded land … equipped in every way and kept in up-to-date order. It will be absolutely sold on the day mentioned, without reserve of any kind, thus giving everyone a fair feld to purchase.”

In the chatty Record section, usually attributed to “Editor, Willis Field,” it was conjectured that “Mr. Haggin concluded that California is not the best place in the world in which to raise Toroughbreds.” Following the auction, the Record published a report that Haggin has successfully bid on the farm and all its structures and “secured a bargain as all he paid was $100 an acre.” (On a personal note, 1897 also was the year the widower Haggin, then 76, wed the 28-year-old Margaret [Pearl] Voorhies.)

Soon, however, Haggin had reduced his racing stable to concentrate on breeding to sell, and he imported a number of stallions from Australia and England. One of the Australians was Sir Modred, who became the leading sire of 1894. Bouyea quoted records from 1892 that indicated horses bred by Haggin won 500 races that year. (To place this into context, the “American Racing Manual” began listing leaders in various statistics in 1918, and it was not until 1992 that any breeder was represented by as many as 500 wins. John Franks was the leading breeder of that year with 584 and again in 1993 with 541.)

Elmendorf Acquisition

As noted in “Te Great Ones,” Haggin’s vast breeding operation had “put California-breds on the map.” A further major step in Haggin’s career, and in the history of American Toroughbred breeding and racing, lengthened his reach back to Kentucky. Tis was his purchase of Elmendorf Farm in 1897.

Elmendorf already had a distinguished history before Haggin added his own era in a sequence that was to be followed by success by various other owners through the 20th century and into the 21st. In an article in Te Blood-Horse in 1984, Keith Chamblin reviewed that the core of the property had been purchased in 1871 when “Milton H. Sanford decided to move his breeding stock from New Jersey to Lexington. Sanford purchased 544 acres from William T. Hughes at the corners of Paris and Iron Works pikes.” Sanford gave the name Preakness Stud to the property in honor of the horse that had helped launch modern Maryland racing by winning the Dinner Party Stakes in 1870. Te Dinner Party was a subscription race run on the day Pimlico opened, and Preakness was later honored by the naming of a race that eventually became an American Triple Crown event.

In 1881, Chamblin continued, “the 544 acres as well as 50 horses were bought for $150,000 by Dan Swigert.” Swigert changed the name of Preakness Stud to Elmendorf, the maiden name of his wife’s grandmother. Swigert had been the manager of R.A. Alexander’s Woodburn Stud, Kentucky’s prototype great commercial breeding operation. Afer Alexander’s death, Swigert initially stayed to manage Woodburn for Alexander’s brother but lef afer a couple of years to establish his