Washington Jockey Club
| Non-profit organisation | |
| Industry | Horse Racing |
| Founded | 1798 |
| Headquarters | Washington DC |
|
Key people
|
John Tayloe III Charles Carnan Ridgely |
| Products | Betting, lottery, sports |
The inaugural match featured John Tayloe III's Lamplighter and Gen. Charles Carnan Ridgely's Cincinnatus, for 500 guineas, ran in 4-mile heats, and won by the former, a son of Imp English bred stallion Medley. The only initial building was a small elevated platform for the judges. The "carriage folk" took to the infield for views of the contests and the strandees crested the outside of the course.
In 1802 growth in the Federal CIty forced abandonment of the initial course, moving to Meridian Hill, south of Columbia Road between Fourteenth and Sixteenth Streets and races were conducted at the Holmstead Farm's one mile oval track. Gen. John Peter Van Ness, Dr. William Thornton, G.W. P. Custis, John D. Threlkeld of Georgetown and George Calvert of Riversdale, Bladensburg, Maryland, contests were moved to Meridian Hill, south of Columbia Road between Fourteenth and Sixteenth Streets, and were conducted at the Holmstead Farm's one mile oval track. For a time Washington and Baltimore were leading centers for racing and like today the best horses raced in the spring and fall. Presidents, military heroes, statesmen, and foreign dignitaries typically attended.
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"Nowhere else could there be seen so brilliant an ensemble, so rich in glow and color, so distinguished, so picturesque, so various and so vivid. The two men most largely responsible for this were the same pair that in 1798 had provided Washington with its first big turf event: John Tayloe III and General Ridgely. . . . When he [Tayloe] withdrew from the turf in 1810, Ridgely, hitherto his rival, succeeded him as its dictator along the Potomac, the Patapsco and the Chesapeake."
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Wikipedia