For Release: February 28th, 2000
The paint was barely dry on the grandstand, but the weather was fair and the track was fast. Eight thousand people had come to admire the stone clubhouse, the landscaped paddock and a novel piece of equipment called a "totalizator." They had come to watch some of the greatest horses from some of the finest Thoroughbred farms in the world. On this day in 1936, they would see even more. They would see the realization of a dream.
The Keeneland Legacy: A Thoroughbred Tradition traces the evolution of the famed race course and sales company from its inception as an impossible dream to its current status as a successful international icon for the horse-racing industry. Peter Thomas, voice of the acclaimed PBS series Nova , narrates. The program airs Wednesday, March 15 at 8/7 p.m. CT on KET and KET2.
"The film is really five stories woven together," says Michael Breeding, executive producer and president of Americana Productions. "It is the little-known story of J.O. "Jack" Keene. It is the story of visionary "hardboot" Hal Price Headley. It is the story of Keeneland, the story of the Thoroughbred industry in Kentucky and the story of the old Kentucky Association Track."
Through extensive research and interviews, Breeding created a film that is not only historically accurate but also captures the spirit behind development of the modern-day Keeneland. Amazingly, much of that history had never been told until now. Even Keeneland's most knowledgeable insiders did not know some of the crucial factors that led to development of the racetrack.
The film begins on Keeneland's opening day in the fall of 1936, a day that was nothing short of a dream realized by the flamboyant men who made it happen and for the town that had gone three agonizing years without a Thoroughbred race track. The decline and closing of the old Kentucky Association track had been an embarrassment to all, but as one horseman said to another on Keeneland's opening day: "America's got a real racetrack now."
The film then focuses on how Kentucky came to be known as the epicenter of the Thoroughbred world. The story of Keeneland's development is told in detail, from creation of the stonework and the original all-wooden grandstand to inception of Thoroughbred auction sales. Woven throughout are vignettes of the people who made it all happen.
The Keeneland Legacy: A Thoroughbred Tradition , produced by Michael Breeding, is closed-captioned for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. Viewers can find out more about programming on KET by visiting the KET Web site at http://www.ket.org , a Kentucky.com affiliate.
Contact: Todd Piccirilli
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