Long-ago Kentucky Derby winner Ben Ali serves as local history lesson

When Bob Adams discovered a Kentucky Derby winner once called his Sacramento neighborhood home, it inspired a celebration.

"I found this little bit of history," said Adams, the executive director of the Del Paso Boulevard Partnership. "Some old-timers were a little familiar with it, but this is a big deal, having a Derby winner from Del Paso. Even Seabiscuit, as great as he was, he didn't win the Kentucky Derby. It's our heritage."

Thursday, the partnership – which represents about 120 businesses on Del Paso Boulevard in North Sacramento – hosted a party in honor of its Derby winner, more than a century after his death and just in time for Saturday's 134th running of America's most famous horse race.

Ben Ali, the pride of Del Paso, won the 12th Kentucky Derby – in 1886.

That's the same year the Statue of Liberty debuted in New York Harbor. Churchill Downs, the home of the Kentucky Derby, was barely a decade old. Modeled after England's Epsom Derby, the Kentucky Derby was a relatively new event.

Long before TV or blimps, Millionaire's Row or even the blanket of roses became part of the annual Derby hoopla, Ben Ali conquered the Bluegrass.

Born in Kentucky of the finest thoroughbred blueblood, Ben Ali spent most of his life in Sacramento. He prepared for his Derby here, winning three stakes in four days in April at local tracks before traveling east in a custom train car. He also won major races in New York and Missouri. He returned home to Del Paso to sire many more racers.

James Ben Ali Haggin, part-Turk and all Kentuckian, named his big brown colt for himself. He hoped to make Sacramento the thoroughbred mecca of the West. The bustling town had four racetracks with several others nearby. At one point, Haggin's Rancho del Paso rivaled anything in Kentucky.

A lawyer, Haggin ventured to California in 1850, bitten by the gold bug. With San Francisco law partner Lloyd Tevis, Haggin became a mine owner, including the rich Anaconda and Homestake mines. By 1880, he decided he needed a hobby and chose an old favorite, horse racing.

Winning a legal dispute, Haggin and Tevis had acquired Rancho del Paso, 44,000 acres of farmland north of the American River bordered roughly by today's Northgate Boulevard on the west and Manzanita Avenue on the east. The tract covered 64 square miles. Haggin envisioned it as ideal horse country.

To stock his farm, Haggin bought top prospects in Kentucky and other racing states. He imported stallions and mares from England, New Zealand and Australia. His goal: to build a racing empire.

An 1890 story on his racing operation filled the front page of The Bee under the headline, "California Comes Forth to Rival Kentucky in the Breeding of Great Turf Monarchs." Salvator, "the Matchless Prince of Milers," had just retired to Del Paso after 16 wins in 19 starts. Salvator set a world record (1:35 1/2) for one mile that stood for 30 years.

Ben Ali, a product of Kentucky's famed Elmendorf Farm, was among his early purchases. Haggin expected to make another fortune by betting on Ben Ali in the Derby.

But the on-track bookmakers failed to reach an agreement with Churchill Downs management, and Haggin – as everyone else – couldn't make a wager. He settled for the winner's purse: $4,890.

By contrast, Saturday's Kentucky Derby winner will earn more than $1.2 million.

Haggin took his winning colt and returned to Sacramento, vowing never to race in the Derby again. He didn't – but he sent hundreds of thoroughbreds to New York auctions from his sprawling Sacramento ranch and campaigned several of the top stakes horses of his day. Besides his Derby win, Haggin won the 1885 Belmont Stakes – the third jewel of the Triple Crown – with Tyrant and bred 1903 Belmont winner Africander. In another rarity, Haggin bred a winner (Rubio, 1908) of England's Grand National, the world's most famous steeplechase.

At its height, Rancho del Paso was home to about 600 broodmares and 40 stallions plus hundreds of offspring. Where the Haggin Oaks golf course now stands, horses trained on a 1-mile track near a complex of spacious barns with 64 stalls each.

With an international reputation, Del Paso yearlings regularly sold for more than $10,000 at auction. One brought a then-record $38,500.

Haggin also bred trotters at Del Paso with about 200 mares and stallions including Echo, a son of Hambletonian.

But at the end of the 19th century, anti-gambling sentiments swept through Sacramento. Racetracks were shuttered. Haggin decided to take his horses and move back to Kentucky, where he bought Elmendorf Farm and continued breeding champions, including two Preakness winners. He sold Rancho del Paso in 1910 for $1.5 million. The property soon was subdivided into homes. Haggin died in 1914 at age 91.

Kentucky's Keeneland Race Course runs a stakes named for Ben Ali each April. But his California legacy is all but forgotten in the Bluegrass.

Churchill Downs vice president John Asher was surprised by Ben Ali's California ties.

"I had no idea he was the pride of Sacramento," Asher said of Ben Ali. "When you see a name like James Ben Ali Haggin, you think of bluegrass."

Last year, the City of Sacramento erected a near-lifesize statue of Ben Ali on Del Paso Boulevard as part of a public arts project, Adams noted.

"We have visitors call us, looking for the horse," he said of the statue. "Ben Ali is still bringing people to Del Paso."

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