03/22/2026
๐๐๐ฉ๐ฅ๐๐ก๐ฎ๐ซ๐ฌ๐ญ ๐๐ญ๐จ๐๐ค ๐
๐๐ซ๐ฆ: ๐๐ก๐ ๐๐ญ๐จ๐ซ๐ฒ ๐จ๐ ๐๐๐ฒ ๐๐ข๐ซ๐, ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐๐๐๐จ๐ง๐ฌ, ๐๐ง๐ ๐ ๐๐๐ง๐ญ๐ฎ๐ซ๐ฒ ๐จ๐ ๐๐ข๐ฌ๐ญ๐จ๐ซ๐ฒ ๐๐จ๐ฆ๐ ๐๐จ๐ฆ๐
In 1898, a Paris, Kentucky horseman named Warren Adams Bacon Jr. paid $2,600 at the W.L. Simmons estate dispersal sale for a 20-year-old blue roan stallion named Jay Bird. It was arguably the best $2,600 ever spent in the history of harness racing.
Jay Bird, registration number 5060, had been foaled in 1878 at Ash Grove Farm in Lexington โ the property now known as Darby Dan Farm. Sired by George Wilkes out of a Mambrino Star mare named Lady Frank, he had already proven himself as a racehorse, winning The Kentucky Stakes at The Red Mile in 1880 as a two-year-old. Retired to the breeding shed at Ash Grove, he had sired over 70 standard performers โ approaching the mark set by his own sire George Wilkes โ before Bacon brought him to Maplehurst Stock Farm east of Paris.
What happened next cemented Jay Bird's place in harness racing history.
Under Bacon's management at Maplehurst, Jay Bird became the 14th Century Sire in the history of the sport โ a title awarded when a stallion's offspring reach 100 standard performers. More remarkably, he became the first Century Sire in history to sire another Century Sire. His son Allerton went on to become the first Double Century Sire, ultimately producing 230+ standard performers. The slogan Bacon coined for his stallion โ "It is always a Jay Bird" โ turned out to be prophetic in ways that echo through harness racing to this day.
Jay Bird's influence on the modern sport is staggering. Some of these records may have since been broken โ but time and again it has been descendants of Jay Bird breaking other descendants of Jay Bird's records. At last record, all ten winners of the Triple Crown for Pacers trace lineage to him. The fastest three-year-old pacer ever recorded, Confederate, traces to Jay Bird. The fastest trotter ever, Homicide Hunter, traces to Jay Bird. The highest-earning and fastest standardbred in history, Bulldog Hanover, traces to Jay Bird. An estimated 69% of all current Living Hall of Fame horses carry his blood.
From 1898 to his death on December 18, 1906, Jay Bird earned $37,000 in stud fees alone at Maplehurst โ an extraordinary sum that represented more than 2.5 times what Bacon had paid for the entire farm: an eight-room house, three horse barns, several outbuildings, and 117 acres of Bluegrass, purchased for $14,680. And that figure captures only the stud fees. Bacon also homebred and sold or raced Jay Bird's offspring, which added considerably to the returns on his original $2,600 investment. The December 26, 1906 issue of American Horse Breeder โ the Christmas issue published just eight days after Jay Bird's death โ devoted its cover to him, bearing the simple caption: "Jay Bird, Foaled 1878. Died December 18, 1906."
Bacon buried Jay Bird between two pastures at Maplehurst and marked the grave with a marble headstone reading:
๐ฝ๐ด๐ ๐ต๐ผ๐
๐ท 5060 ๐ด ๐ถ๐ธ๐๐๐๐
๐ ๐๐ผ๐
๐ธ 1878 โ 1906 ๐ผ๐ก ๐๐ ๐๐๐ค๐๐ฆ๐ ๐ ๐ฝ๐๐ฆ ๐ต๐๐๐
๐๐ก๐ ๐๐๐ง ๐๐๐ก๐ข๐ง๐ ๐๐๐ฉ๐ฅ๐๐ก๐ฎ๐ซ๐ฌ๐ญ
Warren Adams Bacon Jr. was born June 7, 1867 in Paris, Kentucky, the son of Warren Adams Bacon Sr., who had made his own remarkable journey โ leaving Massachusetts in the 1840s, coming to Kentucky as a schoolteacher, and building a prosperous life in Bourbon County. The elder Bacon's journey from New England to the Bluegrass was a common enough story for the era, but the family he established in Paris would leave a lasting mark on the region's racing history.
Bacon Jr. worked at a Paris seed company alongside his brother James, but his true passion was trotting horses. He raced on the Grand Circuit including at Lexington, and when the opportunity came to purchase Jay Bird at the Simmons dispersal sale in 1898 โ partnering initially with Paris attorney John Brennan before buying Brennan out โ he seized it. The Maplehurst Stock Farm name and brand were established, and Bacon proved himself not only a capable horseman but a shrewd marketer, running national print advertisements with the Jay Bird photograph and the now-famous slogan.
The personal artifacts that survive from this period tell their own story. A Victorian occupational shaving mug, manufactured for Bacon by the E. Berninghaus & Co. barber supply house of Cincinnati โ one of the largest such firms in the country โ bears his name in gilt lettering and depicts a gray horse standing by a stable. Berninghaus imported European porcelain blanks and decorated them to order; occupational mugs were a status symbol of the era, kept by barbers on personal racks for their regular customers. The gray horse on Bacon's mug almost certainly represents Jay Bird โ the stallion's distinctive blue roan coat, the timeline of ownership, and Bacon's well-documented instinct for branding all point to a deliberate choice rather than a catalog image.
The account ledgers from Geo. Alexander & Co. Bankers of Paris, Kentucky โ bearing Bacon's name on the cover in his own handwriting โ survive from 1905 through 1909, covering the final years of Jay Bird's life at Maplehurst and the aftermath of his death.
๐๐ณ๐๐ฒ๐ฟ ๐๐ฎ๐ ๐๐ถ๐ฟ๐ฑ
Bacon sold Maplehurst Farm on January 22, 1913 to John Sauer and relocated his operation. By 1914 he had settled nine miles west of Demopolis, Alabama, near the small community of Gallion in Marengo County, where he built a training track on the property and also worked horses at Selma, fifty miles east.
It was in Alabama that Bacon campaigned his most notable post-Jay Bird racehorse: Peter Billiken, whose best recorded mile was 2:04. The tack trunk that traveled with Peter Billiken by railway from track to track โ a standard practice of the era for horses competing on the Grand Circuit โ survives in remarkable condition. A substantial wooden chest painted dark green, it bears the horse's name and best time in bold painted lettering: PETER BILLIKEN. 2:13ยผ.
But the world was changing in ways that no horseman could outrun. As the automobile displaced the horse-drawn buggy across America, the market for trotting horses collapsed from two directions at once. Horses that didn't make the grade for racing had always found ready buyers as fast buggy horses โ a reliable secondary market that helped support breeding operations large and small. That market evaporated almost overnight. At the same time, public interest in harness racing itself waned as the automobile captured the American imagination. Bacon transitioned his Alabama operation from horses to dairy cattle, a pragmatic pivot that sustained the farm but marked the end of the Bacon family's chapter in harness racing history. He was out of the horse business entirely by 1922.
Jay Bird's international legacy also deserves mention. His grandson Locanda โ son of the great Allerton โ was sold by Bacon to Russia, where he contributed to the development of the Russian Trotter breed. That breed did not persist beyond 1949, but for a time, Jay Bird's blood was literally shaping equine breeding on another continent.
Bacon died on August 26, 1939 in Gallion, Alabama.
๐ง๐ต๐ฒ ๐๐ฎ๐บ๐ถ๐น๐ ๐๐ถ๐ป๐ฒ ๐๐ผ๐ป๐๐ถ๐ป๐๐ฒ๐
Warren Adams Bacon III was born September 3, 1914 in Gallion, Alabama โ the only child of Warren Jr. and his third wife, Aileen Liver Bacon. He grew up on the Alabama property his father had established, lived his entire life in the Gallion-Demopolis area, worked as a meat inspector for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and died on September 10, 2009 at the age of 95. He is buried at St. Andrew's Cemetery in Gallion.
Warren Adams Bacon IV was born June 17, 1947 in Gallion โ the grandson of the man who had built Maplehurst and made Jay Bird famous. He grew up on the family dairy farm, went on to Auburn University to study zoology, genetics and paleontology, earned a master's degree in molecular biophysics from Florida State, and then โ in the tradition of the family's willingness to go where opportunity led โ left graduate school and joined the circus. Literally. He became a founding member of the Big Apple Circus, performed as a trapeze artist and human cannonball, and spent decades teaching circus arts. When asked once to describe himself in a single sentence, he said without hesitation: "I am an overeducated redneck cowboy, who left graduate school and joined the circus."
Warren IV never visited Maplehurst. He gave his blessing for the farm name to be used and expressed genuine happiness that the property had found owners who understood its history โ but he never made the trip to Paris, Kentucky to stand where his grandfather had stood, or to see the headstone that marks where Jay Bird is buried.
He passed away on August 22, 2025 in the home that his grandfather had built, and that his father lived his entire life in. His funeral was held on March 20, 2026 at St. Andrew's Church in Gallion, Alabama โ the same community where his grandfather had relocated more than a century before, where his father had lived his entire life, and where the Bacon family story in the American South had quietly continued while the world forgot Maplehurst.
Soil from Maplehurst Stock Farm was placed in Warren's grave. He couldn't come to Maplehurst, so we brought a little bit of Maplehurst to him.
๐ง๐ต๐ฒ ๐ข๐ฏ๐ท๐ฒ๐ฐ๐๐ ๐๐ผ๐บ๐ฒ ๐๐ผ๐บ๐ฒ
Among Warren IV's final wishes was that his dear friend and heir Jessica Hentoff find a good home for the family's artifacts โ and especially for Peter Billiken's tack trunk.
The collection that survives is remarkable in its completeness. The trunk itself. The W.A. Bacon Jr. bank ledgers from Geo. Alexander & Co. The occupational shaving mug. What appear to be original driving goggles from the harness racing era. Newspaper clippings spanning decades of Bacon family history in Bourbon County. Photographs including a portrait of Warren Jr. as an adult and a photograph of Warren III as an infant.
These objects did not end up in an archive or a museum. They came back to Maplehurst โ to the farm where Jay Bird is buried, where the headstone now stands restored and upright, where a standardbred descendant of Jay Bird named Lislea Harry was brought as the farm's first equine resident.
๐๐ต ๐ช๐ด ๐ข๐ญ๐ธ๐ข๐บ๐ด ๐ข ๐๐ข๐บ ๐๐ช๐ณ๐ฅ.
