Henry Clay

Henry Clay. Visitors familiar with Lexington's Ashland, the home of Henry Clay, know it as a graceful old house, with lovely gardens and grounds. In an earlier time, when Henry Clay built it to some 2,000 acres, Ashland was also the home of Thoroughbreds. Henry Clay, known in history for his political acumen in such matters as the Treaty of Ghent and for his four attempts at becoming president, was also an avid agriculturalist. He was a member of the Lexington Jockey Club and its successor, the Kentucky Association, which conducted racing in Lexington for more than a century. One of Clay's law partners was Gen. Leslie Combs I, great-grandfather of the Leslie Combs who made Spendthrift Farm on Iron Works Pike a thriving 20th-Century Thoroughbred farm for many years. Clay entertained at Ashland such figures as Marquis de La Fayette, Martin Van Buren and even his rival, Daniel Webster. In the custom of the day, horses were often presented as gifts among the wealthy and prominent, and Wade Hampton II gave to Clay the mare Margaret Wood. The Mare became a granddam of Day Star, the first of three Kentucky Derby winners foaled at Ashland and bred by Clay's descendants.