He was foaled in Kentucky and bred by Frank B. Harper, who also owned his sire Ten Broeck and dam, Sallie M. Green B. Morris purchased Bersan as a yearling for $10,000.
His 1885 performances earned Bersan retrospective American Co-Champion Three-Year-Old Male Horse honors.
[2] At age four at the Ivy City Racetrack in Washington, D.C., Bersan won the one and one eight mile National Hotel Handicap and Riggs Rouse Stakes.
[3] Then, at the Maryland Jockey Club course in Baltimore, he won a mile and a quarter race for horses of all ages.
On December 18, 1886, Morris sold Bersan at a Lexington, Kentucky sale to prominent breeder Daniel Swigert, who stood him at his Elmendorf Farm.