Nestled up on “The Hill” at Keeneland Race Course in Lexington, Ky., is a haven of horse racing historical past, a small stone construction that incorporates literal multitudes. Inside are pictures, books, magazines, and extra, every sharing a line from the story of a sport. That is the Keeneland Library.
Lexington has been dwelling to horses and racing for the reason that metropolis’s earliest days within the late 18th century. The Kentucky Affiliation racetrack, the precursor to Keeneland, was based round 1828 and served as the world’s racing hub till its closure in 1933. In 1935, a gaggle of horsemen, together with Hal Worth Headley, shaped the Keeneland Affiliation, a non-profit group that sought a brand new location for racing within the Lexington space, and bought the previous Keeneland Farm from breeder Jack Keene. Inside a yr, Keeneland Race Course with its signature limestone exterior and huge inexperienced areas was open, quickly changing into an integral a part of each racing and gross sales in the USA.
In 1939, William Arnold Hanger, a member of Keeneland’s board of administrators, donated what grew to become the nucleus of the Keeneland Library, a 2,000-volume assortment that after belonged to Robert James Turnbull, a New York lawyer and sportsman. Different racing luminaries like Robert Gerry quickly contributed extra books and different ephemera and thus the Keeneland Library was born.
In 2002, the library’s present dwelling on “The Hill” opened to the general public, its cathedral ceilings, massive home windows, and wealthy wooden accents inviting patrons in as they enter one of many world’s largest repositories of Thoroughbred racing historical past. This 10,000-square-foot facility homes a group that features “greater than 30,000 books, 25 million pages of trade newspapers and magazines, and 5 million pictures that chronicle all facets of the Thoroughbred trade, previous and current,” in accordance with Keeneland Library Director Roda Ferraro.
The Library’s most important degree homes a good portion of books on all aspects of racing plus certain volumes of The BloodHorse, The Thoroughbred File, The Spirit of the Instances, and different periodicals. Its basement homes climate-controlled storage areas with every little thing from Charles Cook dinner’s century-old assortment of glass destructive plates to artifacts like a blanket that Nashua used at Belmont Park. Open to the general public, the Keeneland Library fields analysis requests from world wide and throughout the spectrum of Thoroughbred breeding and racing.
Want {a photograph} of Man o’ Struggle or Secretariat? The Library has a whole bunch. Need to know extra about jockey Eddie Arcaro? Discover an intensive assortment of articles in regards to the Corridor of Famer plus chart books and different reference supplies for his profession statistics.
For many years, folks from all aspects of the game – followers, bloodstock brokers, turf writers, and extra – have been in a position to entry the library’s in depth assets. On the coronary heart of the work is “the dedication of librarians who spent a long time rising and preserving the collections and dealing with researchers, the general public, racing followers, horse farms, and racetracks year-round to attach the library’s international patrons to our collections.”
Along with working with patrons on their analysis queries, the Keeneland Library additionally invests in outreach and schooling, with the objective of connecting the game with the broader neighborhood. These academic packages embody the Keeneland Library Lecture Collection, the place authors of lately printed equine books talk about their work on a spread of topics from the game’s historical past to fiction set on the earth of horse racing; “The Coronary heart of the Turf: Racing’s Black Pioneers,” a touring exhibit and companion e book which explores the lives and contributions that African Individuals have made to racing; and “Beginning Gate Storytime,” a month-to-month occasion for youthful learners that “fosters early literacy, appreciation of the horse, and trade consciousness,” Ferraro shared.
This important useful resource works not solely with patrons immediately but in addition with a large number of organizations inside and out of doors the game. Its collections have been part of packages at museums and libraries world wide, from the Nationwide Museum of Racing and Corridor of Fame to Presidential libraries and nationwide parks.
“If horse racing or breeding is featured in an exhibit or trade academic supplies wherever, chances are high that content material got here from Keeneland Library,” Ferraro mentioned.
The library’s immense collections acquired over greater than eight a long time have made this repository a significant a part of this international sport.
How can followers and trade contributors assist the Keeneland Library and its packages? Attending ticketed occasions just like the Lecture Collection and others usher in proceeds that profit the Keeneland Library Basis and assist reveals like “The Coronary heart of the Turf” and packages like “Beginning Gate Storytime.” The Keeneland Library additionally accepts presents of books, pictures, artwork, and artifacts from people on a restricted foundation as properly.
Annually in April and October, Keeneland welcomes racing again to this traditional facility, its stone edifice as soon as once more full of followers taking in one other season of nice performances. The subsequent time you go to this historic racetrack, enterprise up “The Hill” and expertise this cathedral to the horse, the place the previous, current, and future come collectively to inform the tales that make our sport.
