Tall Tales of the Track, Kentucky Derby Edition: One Horse, Two Women, and a Derby for the Show Me State

By 1904, the Kentucky Derby was a familiar fixture on racing’s stakes calendar, an American classic on the rise. The race had not quite achieved its familiar level of fame, but this 10-furlong test still attracted attention each May. The 30th edition was a landmark one, featuring a couple of firsts, one for the Show Me State and two for the ladies.

Bred by Emma Holt Prather, Elwood came east from California to contest the Kentucky Derby for his owner Lasca Durnell, not only giving Missouri its lone rosy victor but also becoming the first bred and owned by women. 

Unexpected Connections

Nestled in the northwest corner of Missouri is Nodaway County, named for the Nodaway River. In the eastern part of the county is Parnell, where Hall of Fame trainers Ben A. and Horace A. “Jimmy” Jones got their early equine educations. Nodaway’s center is home to its county seat Maryville, which boasts a unique connection to Kentucky Derby history: on its western side sat Faustiana Farm, once one of the premier Thoroughbred breeding nurseries west of the Mississippi. There, history was made.

James Basil Prather was born in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, and moved west to Missouri with his parents as a young man; the family settled in the Maryville area and established their homestead in Nodaway County. James married Emma Holt in 1873 and worked as a banker while also breeding and raising Thoroughbreds on his Faustiana Farm. 

The farm was named for the stallion Faustus, whom Prather purchased. Faustus was a grandson of Leamington, who had sired both Aristides, the first Kentucky Derby winner, and Iroquois, the first American horse to win the Epsom Derby. 

Faustiana Farm included another stallion, Free Knight, and several broodmares, including Petticoat. Free Knight had finished third behind Ben Ali in the 1886 Kentucky Derby and Petticoat had raced for the Lamasney brothers around the New York circuit. Prather purchased the stallion to stand at Faustiana alongside Faustus.

When James Prather died in 1891, he left the farm to his oldest son Benjamin, but because the young man was only 16, Emma Holt Prather took over and maintained Faustiana on her son’s behalf. She picked up Petticoat in a trade with the Lamasney brothers and bred her to Free Knight. The first two foals, Martin K. and Night Gown, both raced, but neither did anything of note. Their third foal, born in 1901, did those two one better and made history.

A Surprising Contender 

The Faustiana foals were often sold as yearlings, so it was no surprise that a paddock sale in 1902 included a lot of 10, including Petticoat’s 1901 colt by Free Knight. The bay colt was sold for $625 to Charles “Boots” Durnell and Emil Herz, a German turfman who later pioneered the Kentucky Derby winter book, and he raced for the partnership during his two-year-old season. They named the Free Knight colt Elwood, Durnell’s middle name, and then raced him in Chicago and Los Angeles. His juvenile season was short on success. Elwood raced 17 times in 1903 and won only once, with two seconds and one third. 

Durnell was confident enough in Elwood’s potential that he nominated the colt for the 1904 Kentucky Derby and kept the colt’s name in contention even after he and Herz dissolved their partnership in August 1903. Their stable of 16 horses went up for auction at Hawthorne in Chicago, Durnell buying back six including Elwood, whom he purchased for $3,500. He then raced the bay colt in his wife Lasca’s name. They had better luck at the races in 1904, winning three races (including a 12-furlong test) in California before coming east for the big race in Louisville. He spent five days in Chicago before arriving at Churchill Downs, Lasca Durnell confident that her colt could win the 10-furlong test. 

The field for the 30th Kentucky Derby was a scant five horses, with Ed Tierney the favorite, Brancas second choice, and Elwood the longshot at 15-1. The stable’s contract rider Frank Prior had traveled from California to ride the Durnell horse, the 20-year-old’s first and only mount in the Run for the Roses. They broke from post 3, the middle of the field, and settled back in fourth for the first mile, with Proceeds and then Prince Silverwings leading the short field around the oval. 

In the stretch, Ed Tierney, Brancas, and then Elwood made their bids for the lead, the three battling out in the final furlong. At the wire, Lasca Durnell’s horse had a half-length advantage on his competition, taking the Kentucky Derby over the highly regarded first and second choices, becoming the first and only horse bred in Missouri to win this American classic. Durnell became the first woman to own a Kentucky Derby starter, and then at the same time, the first to own a Derby winner. Emma Holt Prather became the first woman to breed a Kentucky Derby winner as well, making the 1904 edition a victory for women more than a decade before they would gain the vote. 

The Story’s End

While Elwood was competing in Louisville, his sire Free Knight was pulling a plow on a southern Kentucky farm, Prather having sold the stallion for $45 when his Derby-winning son was a yearling. A couple of months after her Derby win, Lasca Durnell was forced to sell her horses when the Chicago Jockey Club forbade married women from running horses in their own names; Charles “Boots” Durnell bought Elwood at the dispersal. Elwood went on to win the Latonia Derby that year and then raced three more seasons with minimal success.

Three years after her historic victory, Lasca Durnell divorced “Boots,” who was ruled off the turf and forced to sell his stable, including Elwood, later that year. By 1910, the gelded 1904 Derby winner was a saddle horse in California, the last trace of this historic victor.