The next great contest that old-time racing men spoke of with a respect that was akin to awe was that between Gray Eagle, a Kentucky horse, by Woodpecker out of Ophelia by Medley, and a Louisiana horse, Wagner, by Sir Charles out of Maria West by Marion, at four-mile heats. This was at Louisville in 1839. Wagner won the first two heats, Gray Eagle being badly ridden, in 7.48 and 7.44. This race was run on a Monday. The following Saturday the race was repeated. Gray Eagle won the first heat in 7.51; Wagner took the second heat in 7.43. Gray Eagle broke down on the second mile of the third race, and no time was kept. Though I was not born for many years after these races were run, they were so important in the history of the neighborhood where I lived and such frequent topics of conversation that I sometimes have difficulty in persuading myself that I was not present. In this I somewhat resemble the gallant King of England, who believed that he was at the battle of Waterloo. Kentucky had become prominent before this time as a breeding place for Thoroughbreds. The Kentuckians, mainly from Virginia in the early days, were horse lovers by inheritance and habit, so they took with them to their new homes very little but good stock. They were not impoverished adventurers seeking new pioneer homes because they had failed in the places of their birth. Not a bit of it. They were well born and of good substance, and they went to this new country to found estates, for the gentlemen of that period had not outgrown the Elizabethan land hunger which took so many of the cavaliers to Virginia in an earlier century. That they took good horses with them was a matter of course. And arriving there they found that the native blue grass, which grew plentifully even in the woods, was pasturage upon which horses flourished mightily. The advertisements in the _Kentucky Gazette_ from 1787 to 1805 show that there were many Thoroughbred stallions standing in the neighborhood of Lexington during those years, and not a few of them were imported from England, the others coming from Virginia, the noble pedigrees being printed at full length, with references nearly always to the Newmarket Racing Calendar to substantiate the turf performances of the sires advertised. So Kentucky was prepared with stock of her own to take the place of the Virginia horse breeders when the wasteful methods of agriculture, and the costly habits of hospitality, had impoverished the mother State and made racing a sport too expensive for the depleted purses of the gentlemen who stayed at home. The Sir Archy blood was what the Kentuckians seem to have been after, and soon there was more of it in Kentucky than in Virginia. Some six of Sir Archy’s sons stood in the neighborhood of Lexington at one time, and there were mares there fit to mate with Diomed’s grandsons.