Washington Jockey Club

[3] The inaugural match featured John Tayloe III's Lamplighter and Gen. Charles Carnan Ridgely's Cincinnatus, for 500 guineas, ran in 4-mile heats, and won by the former, a sire of Ridgeley's Imp English bred stallion Grey Medley.

Wilhelmus Bryan, a historian of early Washington, attributed the popularity of horse racing in the new federal city "to the interest taken in breeding of racing stock by John Tayloe III, reputed to be the wealthiest man in the city.

His son, Colonel John Tayloe III, went on to purchase and breed many thoroughbreds, including Grey Diomed (f. 1786), Dungannon (f. 1794), Selima (f. 1805), and Sir Archy (f. 1805).

John Tayloe III built the Octagon in the Federal City, and also owned a 204 acre horse farm called Petworth, bounded on the south by Rock Creek Road and on the west by Georgia Avenue, which stood on the land that now comprises the Petworth neighborhood.

The eager citizens who attended the four mile heat interpreted the race as a contest between the states; in this instance, Virginia was victorious and Tayloe carried home a purse of 500 guineas!

[clarification needed][5] In 1802 growth in the Federal City forced abandonment of the initial course, moving to the Holmead Farm, what is now Meridian Hill—south of Columbia Road between Fourteenth and Sixteenth Streets—and races were conducted at the Holmstead Farm's one mile oval track.

[clarification needed] Nowhere else could there be seen so brilliant an ensemble, so rich in glow and color, so distinguished, so picturesque, so various and so vivid.

The two men most largely responsible for this were the same pair that in 1798 had provided Washington with its first big turf event: John Tayloe III and General Ridgely.

When he [Tayloe] withdrew from the turf in 1810, Ridgely, hitherto his rival, succeeded him as its dictator along the Potomac, the Patapsco and the Chesapeake.[4]: p.