ong before Kentucky, Maryland, and New York held the Triple Crown, the Carolinas and Virginia were among the horsiest states in the Union. In fact, horse races were once the most popular sporting events in North Carolina, says Neil Fulghum, keeper of the North Carolina Collection Gallery.

North Carolinians were so fond of going to the tracks that the colonial government passed a statute in 1764 to curtail gambling "at any Game or Games," with only two exceptions: backgammon and horse racing. Newspapers began criticizing government officials for spending too much time at the tracks and not enough time on their public duties. Of James Turner, North Carolina’s governor in 1803, The North-Carolina Minerva wrote, "Will the People be benefited if the Governor has the fastest horse?"

John Brickell, an Irish physician transplanted to North Carolina, described the colony’s racing scene in 1737:

…they have Race-Paths, near each Town, and in many parts of the Country. Those Paths, seldom exceed a Quarter of a Mile in length, and only two Horses start at a time…These Courses being so very short, they use no manner of Art, but push on with all the speed imaginable…

ver time, race distances became longer, up to four miles. Good jockeys became famous, among the first sports heroes of a new nation. Some of those heroes — such as Austin Curtis, considered the best jockey of his time — were slaves.

By 1790 the General Assembly had decreed that anyone convicted of the theft of "any horse, mare, or gelding….shall suffer death without benefit of clergy." The punishment’s severity, Fulghum explains, reflected the growing number of refined and expensive horses to be found in the South.

But Northerners had their own fast horses. And the rivalries were getting hot. "Long before their respective armies faced one other, the North and South were already at war on the race track," Fulghum says.