Dear Readers:
The Times has noted several sightings about town lately of its favorite antebellum equine artist Edward Troye and his muse Lexington, and is pleased to share the following pictorial.

Hanging Out at the International Museum of the Horse (IMH): The skeleton of Kentucky-bred champion racer and stallion Lexington was relocated to the IMH in Kentucky in 2010 from the Smithsonian in D.C., where it had been on view since Woodburn Farm’s A.J. Alexander donated the remains there in 1878.

Most recently Lexington had been showcased in a Smithsonian exhibit at the National Museum of Natural History’s Osteology Hall, but in the early years (as reported in an 1880 museum visitor’s guide) he had been sharing space with a range of unlikely comrades—the Hadrosaurus Foulkti (dinosaur), a kangaroo lizard, a Himalayan tortoise, two ostriches and a llama—unfortunately no barn cats or goats to keep him company!

Winning Memorabilia: Housed in the same room of the museum is a case displaying a trophy from the 1853 Citizen’s Stakes, a two-miler that took place at Lexington’s Kentucky Association Track and was won by a three-year-old named Darley. Richard Ten Broeck, the proprietor of New Orleans’ Metairie Race Course, recognized Darley’s talent and immediately purchased the colt, whom has since been known to the world as the mighty Lexington.

Left Photo: Darley’s Citizen’s Stakes trophy by Garner & Winchester Silversmiths, Lexington, KY, 1853, coin silver; on loan to IMH from the Kentucky Historical Society.

Right: Full view of Lexington at IMH.

Click on photos to enlarge.

 

 

Big Lex Signage: “Big Lex”— the local VisitLEX visitor’s bureau adaptation of Troye’s portrait of Lexington—continues to have new sightings around town, seen here on a wall of the downtown Lexington Hyatt on Vine and Broadway, and smaller versions atop downtown lamp posts.

 

 

Read more about Troye, Lexington and Big Lex in the Times’ contribution to the January/February 2015 issue of American Racehorse magazine: “Edward Troye: America’s Equine Artist,” which begins on numbered page 26.

Thanks for reading!
Sincerely,
Editor, Antebellum Turf Times