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It is Derby week here in Kentucky and Rosemary was asking if there was a connection between Bourbon and fast horses in Kentucky. I told her that there was and she wanted me to write a blog about it.

It all started in the early 19th century when Kentuckians were traveling to New Orleans to sell their tobacco and other goods. It was a long and dangerous trip by flatboat, with Native Americans and river pirates along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. When they got to New Orleans, they would sell their goods, including Bourbon whiskey, and their flatboats. They could not take the flatboat back up river and the wood that the boats were made of was valuable to the people of New Orleans. They used it to construct homes. 

The Kentuckians then had a choice to make on how they would get back into Kentucky. They could take the easy, but expensive route of purchasing passage on a ship out of New Orleans to a city on the east coast of the United States and come back to Kentucky through the Cumberland Gap or down the Ohio River via Pittsburgh. Or they could walk back up the Natchez Trace. The latter trip was full of danger as once again they would chance encounters with Native Americans or bandits who would love to separate them from their hard earned cash and their scalp (the British were paying good money for American scalps in Detroit). 

Most Kentuckians opted for the Natchez Trace, but they also purchased the fastest horses they could find to make the trip. The theory being if they could outrun the danger, they had a better chance of getting home with their scalp and money. They would also have a fast horse to breed once they got home. Thus, Kentucky became a place known for fast horses.

Photos Courtesy of Rosemary Miller