Andrew Jackson and Horse Racing in Early America

Feb 11, 2012
William L. Wunder

American Eclipse, relative of Jackson's Truxton - Edward Troye (1808-1874)

Andrew Jackson's lifelong love of horse racing enabled him to serve his country, to benefit financially, and to shape the sport in 19th century America.

Although organized horse racing began in America in the northeastern section, it shifted south towards the end of the 18th century. The region's mild winters, lusher pastures, and cheap land made it attractive to the sport's patrons, especially wealthy planters. The sport also attracted a poor boy from the Carolina Piedmont country by the name of Andrew Jackson.

Natchez, Mississippi

As a boy, Jackson raced horses against other boys in Waxhaw, SC. His racing ability led to his selection as a courier for Patriot forces during the American Revolutionary War. At age 16, Jackson was also a recognized appraiser of horseflesh, as a 1783 document with his signature appraising a bay horse attested. After the war, Jackson gambled an inheritance away partly on horse racing. Then, as a law apprentice in Salisbury NC, Jackson was described by a resident as "the most roaring, rollicking, game-cocking, horse-racing, card playing, mischievous fellow that ever lived in Salisbury."

Jackson's youthful fervor continued in Natchez, MS while he built a law career in Nashville, TN. From 1789 to 1792, on and off, Jackson lived in the Natchez area attending to business ventures. William Sparks, familiar with young Jackson, called him "a restless and enterprising young man." He had a small store in nearby Bruinsburgh, which was near a racetrack for quarterhorses. Sparks claimed that the area was rife with anecdotes of Jackson's skill at racing quarterhorses. Jackson may also have had an owning interest in the racetrack.

Truxton

But it was Tennessee that would become the center of horse racing in early 19th century America. In the first organized race in the state, at Gallatin in 1804, Jackson entered his mare Indian Queen and lost. He was not deterred. He acquired the renowned Truxton, sired by the English champion Diomed. Jackson also acquired the champion Greyhound and an interest in the Clover Bend racetrack, where he organized races involving Truxton. Also using Truxton to stud, Jackson, with the help of his slave Dinwiddie, became the top horse breeder in Tennessee.

Jackson fiercely protected this reputation. In 1805, he took up Joseph Erwin's challenge: Erwin's Plowboy vs. Truxton for $2,000, with an $800 appearance bond payable to Jackson if Plowboy failed to show. During training runs, however, Erwin determined that Plowboy was too slow and paid the November 5th appearance bond rather than risk losing $2,000. The race was rescheduled for April 3, 1806.

Billed as "the greatest and most interesting match race ever run in the western country..." by the Nashville Impartial Review, Jackson refused to withdraw from it when Truxton suffered a thigh injury during training. Despite the injury and the pouring rain, Truxton won the arranged two two-mile heats. Jackson recorded winning a total of $10,000. Later, bad-mouthing on both sides led Jackson to kill Erwin's son-in-law Charles Dickinson in a duel.

Bolivar

The demands of a political career didn't prevent Jackson from engaging in horse racing. In 1823, Jackson interrupted his presidential campaign to be among 60,000 people attending the "Great Match Race" at Long Island, NY. It was the sporting version of the Civil War, pitting the North's American Eclipse, a grandsire of Diomed, and the South's Sir Henry. American Eclipse won in three heats. Jackson was not among those southerners who lost their plantations from the result.

Upon winning the presidency in 1828, Jackson sold his current favorite racehorse Bolivar, a gray stud colt and a descendent of Truxton. But a year later, in the midst of his presidential duties, Jackson felt the pangs of seller's remorse and bought back Bolivar. From Washington D.C., Jackson managed Bolivar. To his horse-man in Tennessee he wrote, "knowing the merit of his (Bolivar's) blood, you see I am determined to keep its credit up until I can get it tested, by his offspring from a thoroughbred mare."

Nothing upset Jackson more than the mismanagement of his horses, according to historian H.W. Brands. In the spring of 1832, he discovered that his overseer was running his horses too hard too soon. "I was truly mortified," he wrote to his son Andrew Jr. Jackson preferred that the horses were saved for the fall races. He ordered his son to "have the turf closed, plowed up, and permit not a horse to gallop on it," at his Hermitage plantation.

Still, after leaving the presidency, Jackson's horses were in poor condition, "I find my blooded stock in bad order and too numerous for empty corn cribs and hay lofts. I have determined to sell out part to enable me to feed the balance better." Jackson also sold some of his best horses to help pay off his son's debts. Ads with glowing descriptions of the horses were to entice buyers, but according to Brands, it also showed Jackson's difficulty in letting them go, like Bolivar.

Andrew Jackson used his skill and enthusiasm for horse racing to support his country, his finances, and his reputation. All the while, he helped build Tennessee into the center of horse racing in the early 19th century. Ironically, Kentucky would eventually take over that role, thanks to Jackson's most hated political rival and another excellent horse breeder, Henry Clay.