Lexington

Lexington is a city in central Kentucky, in the Bluegrass region of rolling pastures and limestone soil. It calls itself the Horse Capital of the World, as many of the leading thoroughbred breeding farms of the United States lie on the roads around it. The limestone under its pastures puts calcium into the grass and water, which breeders say gives horses strong bones.

The site was named in the 1770s after Lexington in Massachusetts, and settlers built a blockhouse beside a spring in 1779. Transylvania University, founded in 1780, was the first college west of the Allegheny Mountains. In the early 19th century Lexington was a rich town of hemp and tobacco farms, and its buildings earned it the name Athens of the West. Henry Clay, the statesman, lived at his estate of Ashland outside the town, and Mary Todd, the wife of Abraham Lincoln, grew up in a house on Main Street.

Lexmark, the maker of printers and imaging software, has its head office in Lexington. Thoroughbred yearlings and mares bred on the farms of the region are sold at auctions in the city, where buyers from many countries bid for future racehorses. Bourbon whiskey is distilled in and around the city.

Keeneland, a racetrack opened in the 1930s, holds races in spring and autumn under old trees and stone grandstands, and its sales ring hosts the main horse auctions. The Kentucky Horse Park, north of the city, has museums of the horse and a show ring for international competitions. The University of Kentucky Wildcats play basketball at Rupp Arena downtown and have won many national championships.