A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Samuel Brown was a student at Washington & Jefferson College when he left to serve with the Union Army during the American Civil War.

Named for his favorite mare, the breeding farm's land is today occupied by the Kentucky Horse Park.

He also invested in the Kentucky Association horse racetrack in Lexington,[1] and the Bascombe Race Course in Mobile, Alabama which he used as a training base for his stable of Thoroughbred runners.

Samuel Brown was one of the founding executives of the Brooklyn Jockey Club which, in 1886, built the Gravesend Race Track in New York.

[2] For a number of years Brown's racehorses were trained by future Hall of Fame inductee John W. Rogers with whom he also raced horses in a partnership.