Sir Barton
At Washington Park in Douglas you’ll find a monument to America’s first Triple Crown Winner, a horse called Sir Barton. The Triple Crown is
bestowed on horses that win the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes, but the award hadn’t yet been created when Sir Barton raced to the winner’s circle at all three events in 1919. Sir Barton was a three-year-old at the time.
Sir Barton was sired by a leading stud Star Shoot and out of a mare named Lady Sterling. John E. Madden and Vivian Gooch, at the Hamburg Place Farm near Lexington, Kent., raised the champion runner. Madden raced Sir Barton in his two-year-old season. The horse was entered in six races, but didn’t win any. Madden sold the horse in 1918 to a Canadian businessman for $10,000.
Under the ownership of Canadian J.K.L. Ross and the guidance of trainer H. Guy Bedwell and jockey Johnny Loftus, 1919 proved to be a different story for America’s first Triple Crown Winner. As the 1919 race season came to an end, Sir Barton was recognized as Horse of the Year.
In 1922 Ross sold Sir Barton to B.B. Jones who stood him at Audley Farm in Berryville, Va. where he remained until 1933. He was moved to Fort Robinson, Neb. located east of Lusk, Wyo. near the Nebraska and Wyoming state line. While at Fort Robinson Sir Barton was a remount stallion in the effort to supply horses to the U.S. Calvary. He was purchased from Fort Robinson by Douglas area rancher J.R. Hylton.
It was 1948 before Sir Barton was officially recognized as America’s first Triple Crown winner. Sir Barton is buried in Douglas’ Washington Park where a statue is erected in his honor.
| P.O. Box 1212, Douglas, WY 82633 |