[The Darley Arabian, The Byerly Turk, The Godolphin Arabian, by Julie Wear, 1991 Oil on canvas Kentucky Derby Museum Permanent Collection]
Over a century and a half after Bulle Rock reached American shores, fifteen horses went to post in the inaugural Kentucky Derby, held at the new Louisville Jockey Club course in Louisville, Kentucky on May 17, 1875. Each of the fifteen sported impressive pedigrees that included the names of the greatest sires in American history somewhere in their charts: thirteen could claim descent from Sir Archy (occasionally spelled “Archie”), twelve claimed Boston, nine claimed Lexington, and so on. But all of them, through the many generations of sires and dams that came before, still carried the blood of those three stallions from the Middle East, by way of Britain.
Those bloodlines lived on in the twentieth century equine heroes and heroines of the Kentucky Derby. The 1926 first and second place finishers, Bubbling Over and Bagenbaggage, were bred by E. R. Bradley at his Idle Hour Stock Farm. One of Bradley’s most prolific and influential sires, Black Toney, would produce Derby winners Black Gold (1924) and Brokers Tip (1933).
Regret, the first filly to win the Kentucky Derby in 1915, came from another important sire line in Derby history. Her sire, Broomstick, was the progeny of Ben Brush, winner of the 1896 Kentucky Derby. Ben Brush’s line runs back to other Thoroughbreds, like: Bramble, Bonnie Scotland, Leamington, Eclipse, and Lexington. And, of course, the Darley and Godolphin Arabians and the Byerly Turk.
