Lexington, consolidated with Fayette County, is the second-largest city in Kentucky and the 61st largest in the United States. Known as the "Horse Capital of the World", it is the heart of the state's Bluegrass region. With a mayor-alderman form of government, it is one of two cities in Kentucky designated by the state as first-class; the other is the state's largest city of Louisville. In the 2014 U.S. Census Estimate, the city's population was 310,797, anchoring a metropolitan area of 489,435 people and a combined statistical area of 708,677 people.

Lexington ranks tenth among US cities in college education rate, with 39.5% of residents having at least a bachelor's degree. It is the location of the Kentucky Horse Park, The Red Mile and Keeneland race courses, Rupp Arena, the world's largest basketball-specific arena, Transylvania University, the University of Kentucky and Bluegrass Community & Technical College.

History

This area of fertile soil and abundant wildlife was long occupied by varying tribes of Native Americans. European explorers began to trade with them but settlers did not come in force until the late 18th century.

Kentucky (ⁱ/kənˈtʌki/, kən-TU-kee), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state located in the east south-central region of the United States. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth (the others being Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts). Originally a part of Virginia, in 1792 Kentucky became the 15th state to join the Union. Kentucky is the 37th most extensive and the 26th most populous of the 50 United States.

Kentucky is known as the "Bluegrass State", a nickname based on the bluegrass found in many of its pastures due to the fertile soil. One of the major regions in Kentucky is the Bluegrass Region in central Kentucky which houses two of its major cities, Louisville and Lexington. It is a land with diverse environments and abundant resources, including the world's longest cave system, Mammoth Cave National Park, the greatest length of navigable waterways and streams in the contiguous United States, and the two largest man-made lakes east of the Mississippi River.

Kentucky (foaled 1861, died 1875), was a successful American Thoroughbred racehorse who won 21 of his 23 starts, including 20 consecutive wins.

He was by Lexington, who sired three colts in 1861 (out of Glencoe mares) and would each become one of the best race horses in America – Norfolk, Asteroid and Kentucky. Norfolk and Asteroid went undefeated throughout their racing careers, and one of the few horses who ever defeated Kentucky was Norfolk. Kentucky's dam was Magnolia, by the imported British champion Glencoe; Glencoe stood at John Harper's Nantura Stock Farm in Kentucky. His sire line traced back to Herod.

A rangy bay with a narrow white stripe and white off-fore pastern, Kentucky was owned by John Hunter, one of the founders of the Saratoga Race Course and co-owner (and the first chairman) of The Jockey Club.

Racing record

Probably trained by A.J. Minor (the facts are unclear), Kentucky won his only two-year-old start. At age three, racing for John Hunter, William R. Travers and George Osgood, he lost his second start in the inaugural Jersey Derby – coming in fourth to Norfolk. After that he won 20 consecutive races, including the first Travers Stakes in 1864 and the first two runnings of the Saratoga Cup at a distance of 2¼ miles. He also won the first Inaugural Stakes in four mile heats at the newly opened Jerome Park Racetrack. For three seasons (1864, 1865 and 1866), when races were two, three and four miles long, he was the undisputed champion of East Coast racing.

Kentucky is a 1938 Technicolor film with Loretta Young, Richard Greene, and Walter Brennan. It was directed by David Butler. It is a Romeo and Juliet story of lovers Jack and Sally, set amidst Kentucky horseracing, in which a family feud goes back to the Civil War and is kept alive by Sally's Uncle Peter.

Plot

During the Civil War, Thad Goodwin (Charles Waldron) of Elmtree Farm, a local horse breeder resists Capt. John Dillon (Douglass Dumbrille) and a company of Union soldiers confiscating his prize horses. He is killed by Dillon and his youngest son Peter (Bobs Watson) cries at the soldiers riding away with the horses.

75 years later, in 1938, Peter (Walter Brennan) now a crotchety old man, still resides on Elmtree Farm and raises horses with his niece Sally (Loretta Young). Dillon's grandson Jack (Richard Greene) and Sally meet, her not knowing that he was a Dillon. Peter Goodwin dies when his speculation on cotton drops. The Goodwins are forced to auction off nearly all their horses and Jack offers his services to Sally, as a trainer of their last prize horse, "Bessie's Boy", who falls ill.