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100 Years Before Ford v. Ferrari, a Horse Breeder Revolutionized Thoroughbred Racing Through a Similar Obsession With Progress
Horse racing was the most popular sport in early America, drawing massive crowds and fueling a cultural obsession with horses’ speed and pedigree. In the early 1800s, every town in America with a few thousand people had a horse racing track, with major cities drawing crowds of up to 50,000. In the midst of this was Alexander Keene Richards (1827–1881), one of the nineteenth century’s most significant Thoroughbred importers and breeders. Richards was like automotive designer Carroll Shelby, Matt Damon’s character in Ford v. Ferrari, who revolutionized the sport by…
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