(commons. Wikimedia. Org)
Last weekend we witnessed an extraordinary event, that is if you are a horse lover. On a sloppy track with rain pouring down, the first horse to cross the finish line at the 145th running of the Kentucky Derby was disqualified. Yes, he cheated! Shame. Shame! He pushed and shoved and bullied his way to the head of the pack.
Video cameras, an implement we can’t seem to live without, recorded what appeared to be some cheating among the horses, even though the jockeys have not been accused. It took three stewards or judges of the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission twenty minutes of intense viewing of the final seconds of the race.
Country House, at a 65-1 long shot, is now the winner of the Kentucky Derby. Jockey Flavien Prat and another jockey challenged the decision that Maximum Security played fair. After the lengthy viewing the stewards agreed; Maximum Security was not the good winner. Since this is the 21st century, there will surely be appeals to the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission and perhaps lawsuits. Such a sloppy ending to such a sloppy race on a sloppy day.
However, there are two more stellar horse races this summer. Only the Kentucky Derby is in the south, though. Years ago, few towns in the South resisted horse races. Greenville was no exception. While cash was extremely scarce there were certain items like pocket watches, knives, and even horses to use for stakes.
Mustangs roamed the prairies south of Greenville at the confluence of Caddo and Cowleech Creeks, now under Lake Tawakoni. A great adventure was to roundup ponies and saddle-break them to enter in the next race. James Hooker, an early and prominent leader in the county and first Probate Judge, bred his horses with mustangs to produce a much faster animal. He even bred female horses with male donkeys to produce mules, a different specie with different numbers of chromosomes. The mules were not raced but sold to planters in other parts of the South who needed strong mules for plowing and hauling cotton.
The best attended horse races in the area was Devil’s Race Track, north of Greenville in Black Cat Thicket. It was actually a giant salt-lick, a whitish strip of salt on the ground in the shape of the quarter-moon that was always moist. The track was 100 yards long and fifty to 100 yards wide in various places.
Leader of the displaced group of Shawnees Chief Black Cat was well-known for his fine, fast horses. Over the years, young men from Indian Territory brought their steeds to race and more than likely most won. Once the railroads came, the Native Americans put their horses on the train for a comfortable ride to Hunt County. Native Americans from the Choctaw Nation, Osage Nation, Kickapoo Nation as well as the Shawnee Nation made their ways across the Red River to Devil’s Race Track. Even a few unescorted young ladies were seen at the Devil’s Triangle around 1900.
Horse races attracted gamblers and horsemen to the Hunt County Fair each August. Again, great horses arrived on the train, some in special railroad cars. The Hunt County Fair was well known for its races and fine horses. About 1910 when the Progressive Party began to set social standards and determine what was proper and what was not, horse races along with other activities bit the dust, so to speak. But that’s another story completely.