Thoroughbred Horse Racing
Vanderbilt was one of the founders of The Jockey Club. He was a shareholder and president of the Sheepshead Bay Race Track in Brooklyn, New York and the owner of a successful racing stable.
In 1896, he built the American Horse Exchange at 50th Street (Manhattan) and Broadway. In 1911 he leased it (and eventually sold it to) the Shubert Organization who then transformed it into the Winter Garden Theatre.
After his divorce from Alva, he moved to France where he built a château and established the Haras du Quesnay horse racing stable and breeding farm near Deauville in France's famous horse region of Lower Normandy. Among the horses he owned was the U.S. Racing Hall of Fame filly Maskette, purchased from Castleton Farm in Lexington, Kentucky for broodmare services at his French breeding farm. Vanderbilt's horses won a number of important races in France including:
- Critérium de Maisons-Laffitte: Prestige (1905), Northeast (1907), Montrose II (1911)
- Critérium de Saint-Cloud: Illinois II (1901), Marigold (1902)
- Grand Critérium: Prestige (1905), Montrose II (1911)
- Grand Prix de Deauville: Turenne (1904), Maintenon (1906)
- Grand Prix de Paris: Northeast (1908), Brumelli (1917)
- Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud: Maintenon (1906), Sea Sick (1908), Oversight (1910)
- Poule d'Essai des Poulains: McKinley (1919)
- Prix de Guiche: Negofol (1909), McKinley (1919)
- Prix de la Forêt: Prestige (1905), Montrose II (1911, dead-heat), Pétulance (1911, dead-heat)
- Prix du Jockey Club: Maintenon (1906), Sea Sick (1908), Negofol (1909), Tchad (1919)
- Prix Eugène Adam: Alpha (1903), Maintenon (1906)
- Prix Boiard: Prestige (1906), Maintenon (1907) et Tchad (1920)
- Prix Jean Prat: Prestige (1906)
- Prix Kergorlay: Turenne (1904), Maintenon (1906), Sea Sick (1909, 1910)
- Prix Lagrange: Prestige (1906)
- Prix Morny: Prestige (1905), Messidor III (1909) et Manfred (1910)
- Prix Robert Papin: Prestige (1905), Montrose II (1911), Gloster (1912)
- Prix La Rochette: Schuyler (1907), Manfred (1910), Brume (1910), Pétulance (1911)
- Prix Royal-Oak: Maintenon (1906), Reinhart (1910)
William Kissam Vanderbilt died in Paris, France on July 22, 1920. His remains were brought home and interred in the Vanderbilt family vault in the Moravian Cemetery in New Dorp, Staten Island, New York.
In World War II, the United States liberty ship SS William K. Vanderbilt was named in his honor.
Read more about this topic: William Kissam Vanderbilt
Famous quotes containing the words thoroughbred, horse and/or racing:
“A thoroughbred business man cannot enter heartily upon the business of life without first looking into his accounts.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Don’t worry about a sugar planter. Give him a horse and he’ll ride to his own funeral.”
—Curtis Siodmak (1902–1988)
“Upscale people are fixated with food simply because they are now able to eat so much of it without getting fat, and the reason they don’t get fat is that they maintain a profligate level of calorie expenditure. The very same people whose evenings begin with melted goat’s cheese ... get up at dawn to run, break for a mid-morning aerobics class, and watch the evening news while racing on a stationary bicycle.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)