Abstract
Historians have generally ignored James Ben Ali Haggin, even though he represented one of the wealthiest and most influential entrepreneurs in West. And those who have written about Haggin have offered at best a cursory view of his Rancho Del Paso, which he developed into the world’s largest thoroughbred breeding farm. Located in Sacramento, California, the Rancho began as a rich man’s avocation, an expensive self-indulgence inspired by his own family’s racing experiences in his native Kentucky as well as by the examples offered by numerous affluent men of the age who used horse breeding and horseracing to broadcast their immense wealth. In California, Leland Stanford, George Hearst, Theodore Winters, Elias “Lucky” Baldwin, Alvinza Hayward, Marcus Daly, and other “nabobs” joined Haggin in establishing the “sport of kings” in the Golden State. My thesis argues that Haggin, particularly, had a significant impact on the thoroughbred horse racing and breeding industry during the second half of the nineteenth century. His horses won the premier stakes races in the world, and his breeding program produced numerous successful racehorses. The Rancho Del Paso property presented Haggin with an opportunity to create a premier, state-of-the-art thoroughbred breeding and racing facility. Sacramento became recognized as a major center of the thoroughbred breeding and racing industry largely because of Haggin’s efforts. Although this stature was relatively short lived, Haggin’s dominance in the industry revealed his commitment to purchase, breed, and race only those animals that demonstrated superior physical qualities. In the horse business, Haggin demonstrated the same entrepreneurial and managerial acumen that he manifested in his many successful enterprises, including mining, real estate development and speculation. This essay is based on a variety of primary sources, especially the Breeder and Sportsman, the thoroughbred industry’s trade paper; the New York Times; Sacramento’s two major newspapers, The Bee and the Union; auction house records from the Bancroft Library; the Manuscript Census; and a number of secondary materials on horseracing.