Stone Street (USA)
1905 – January 1914
Longstreet (USA) x Stone Nellie (USA), by Stonehenge (GB)
Family 21
1905 – January 1914
Longstreet (USA) x Stone Nellie (USA), by Stonehenge (GB)
Family 21
While the upgrades and changes introduced at Churchill Downs beginning in 1903 bore fruit in 1908 with the largest Kentucky Derby field that had run since Ben Brush won the race in 1896, the quality of the horses racing was far below Ben Brush's field. The Kentucky Derby was the only major race Stone Street ever won, and he won it in the slowest time ever since the race had been cut to 10 furlongs. His snail-like time of 2:15-1/5 over a heavy track remains the slowest running of the race at its modern distance. He showed no pretensions to significant class in the remainder of his long racing career and ended up as a gelding.
Race record
92 starts, 18 wins, 17 seconds, 9 thirds, US$12,812
1908:
As an individual
A bay, Stone Street liked heavy going as a young horse but later in his career would refuse to extend himself over anything but fast tracks. His owner attributed his inconsistency to unsoundness, and most horsemen attributed his Derby win to his liking for the muddy track surface and to his being substantially fitter than his rivals.
Connections
Foaled at Elmendorf Farm in Kentucky, Stone Street was bred by James Ben Ali Haggin. At 2, he was owned by C. E. “Bud” Hamilton and Joe Pugh until Hamilton's brother John Hamilton bought out Pugh's share in the fall of 1907. He was trained to his Derby win by John W. Hall and later in his career was trained by Jim Everman. He was euthanized in January 1914 after jumping out of his paddock and becoming entangled in wire, which severed one of his hind tendons.
Pedigree notes
Sired by 1891 American Horse of the Year Longstreet (a son of the great Longfellow), Stone Street is inbred 4x3 to 1864 Derby Stakes and St. Leger Stakes winner Blair Athol, a four-time champion sire in England. His dam Stone Nellie (by the imported Blair Athol horse Stonehenge) was a juvenile stakes winner and a full sister to a similar winner in The Sage. The siblings were produced from the King Ernest mare Nell, whose dam Miss Nellie (by imported Eclipse) traced her female descent back to the 18th-century foundation mare Selima.
Fun facts
Last updated: January 3, 2020
Race record
92 starts, 18 wins, 17 seconds, 9 thirds, US$12,812
1908:
- Won Kentucky Derby (USA, 10FD, Churchill Downs)
As an individual
A bay, Stone Street liked heavy going as a young horse but later in his career would refuse to extend himself over anything but fast tracks. His owner attributed his inconsistency to unsoundness, and most horsemen attributed his Derby win to his liking for the muddy track surface and to his being substantially fitter than his rivals.
Connections
Foaled at Elmendorf Farm in Kentucky, Stone Street was bred by James Ben Ali Haggin. At 2, he was owned by C. E. “Bud” Hamilton and Joe Pugh until Hamilton's brother John Hamilton bought out Pugh's share in the fall of 1907. He was trained to his Derby win by John W. Hall and later in his career was trained by Jim Everman. He was euthanized in January 1914 after jumping out of his paddock and becoming entangled in wire, which severed one of his hind tendons.
Pedigree notes
Sired by 1891 American Horse of the Year Longstreet (a son of the great Longfellow), Stone Street is inbred 4x3 to 1864 Derby Stakes and St. Leger Stakes winner Blair Athol, a four-time champion sire in England. His dam Stone Nellie (by the imported Blair Athol horse Stonehenge) was a juvenile stakes winner and a full sister to a similar winner in The Sage. The siblings were produced from the King Ernest mare Nell, whose dam Miss Nellie (by imported Eclipse) traced her female descent back to the 18th-century foundation mare Selima.
Fun facts
- Stone Street was the last direct male descendant of four-time American champion sire Leamington to win the Kentucky Derby. Like the line of Lexington, Leamington's line was effectively extinct as a source of top horses shortly afterward.
- In spite of James Ben Ali Haggin's owning the largest breeding program ever seen in North America, Stone Street was the only Derby winner that he bred.
- In 1908, a feud between Churchill Downs president Charles Grainger and newly elected Louisville mayor James Grinstead came to a head when the mayor and his cronies in City Hall passed an ordinance forbidding bookmaking in the city of Louisville and made it plain that it would be enforced—just in time for the Kentucky Derby and the Churchill Downs spring meeting. After researching Kentucky law and finding language that suggested that auction pools nor “French pools” (pari-mutuel wagering) were both exempt from the state's anti-gambling laws, Grainger and Matt Winn conducted a frantic search for the old pari-mutuel machines that had been discarded due to earlier unpopularity and pressed them into service. Grinstead countered by threatening to have anyone arrested who engaged in public wagering, regardless of the means, but Grainger and Winn were able to obtain a court injunction that allowed the Derby meeting and pari-mutuel betting to proceed without Grinstead's interference. The machines proved popular with the betting public, and pari-mutuel wagering spread from there to become the accepted means of betting on horse racing across the country.
- Stone Street ran in the Kentucky Derby solely because trainer John Hall believed he could win and refused to scratch the horse at the owners' request. Ironically, neither of the Hamiltons ever had another Derby starter.
- According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch of May 8, 1908, Joe Pugh was so eager to be rid of his interest in Stone Street that he threw in a horse blanket to sweeten the deal when he was bought out. His only other condition was that the horse never be brought back to his stable.
Last updated: January 3, 2020