
How Kentucky Became Southern: A Tale of Outlaws, Horse Thieves, Gamblers, and Breeders
Few things revel so freely in the pageantry and nostalgia of southern identity as the scene surrounding Churchill Downs on Derby Day. In fact, bluegrass horse country in general—with its white fences, white suits, and white spectators—is the very vision of a moneyed southern idyll: juleps, gentility, charming women, and, most important, fast thoroughbreds.
To those who know, the raising of champion blood horses in this part of the country is not simply the product of custom. According to Maryjean Wall, in her vivid book How Kentucky Became Southern, the very soil lends itself to the cause. “