How a Single Horse Destroyed America’s Greatest Horse Empire

My book, The Times You Grew Up With, takes you back: https://paulmcallister.store Calumet Farm won more Kentucky Derbies than any owner in history — eight, including two Triple Crown winners. Built outside Lexington, Kentucky with a baking powder fortune, the farm dominated American horse racing from the 1940s through the 1950s under Warren Wright Sr. and trainer Ben Jones. After Wright’s death in 1950, his widow Lucille Markey held the dynasty together for three more decades. Then she died. And the people who inherited it leveraged everything on one stallion. Alydar — the horse who finished second to Affirmed in all three 1978 Triple Crown races — became the most valuable breeding stallion in the world. Under new president J.T. Lundy, Calumet borrowed against Alydar’s future, pre-sold his breeding rights, and spent lavishly on a $1.6 million jet, a million-dollar swimming pool, and tens of millions in horses and bank loans. By 1990, the farm was $120 million in debt. The bank was threatening foreclosure. The insurance was about to lapse. On November 13, 1990, Alydar was found in his stall with a shattered leg. Two days later he was dead. Eight months after that, the most storied horse farm in America filed for bankruptcy. Lundy was convicted of fraud in 2000. He was never convicted of anything related to Alydar’s death. The questions have never been fully answered. Sources: “Questions About Alydar,” Sports Illustrated, November 16, 1992 Skip Hollandsworth, “The Killing of Alydar,” Texas Monthly, June 2001 Ann Hagedorn Auerbach, Wild Ride: The Rise and Tragic Fall of Calumet Farm, Inc., America’s Premier Racing Dynasty (Henry Holt, 1994) “Jury Questions Death of Alydar,” The Seattle Times, June 7, 1998 Tom Dixon, “Alydar’s Final Hours,” BloodHorse, 2012 Calumet Farm official history, calumetfarm.com/about