James Robert Keene (February 8, 1838 - January 3, 1913) was a Wall Street stockbroker and a major

thoroughbred The Thoroughbred is a horse breed best known for its use in horse racing. Although the word ''thoroughbred'' is sometimes used to refer to any breed of purebred horse, it technically refers only to the Thoroughbred breed. Thoroughbreds are ...

race horse Horse racing is an equestrian performance sport, typically involving two or more horses ridden by jockeys (or sometimes driven without riders) over a set distance for competition. It is one of the most ancient of all sports, as its basic pr ...

owner and

breeder A breeder is a person who selectively breeds carefully selected mates, normally of the same breed to sexually reproduce offspring with specific, consistently replicable qualities and characteristics. This might be as a farmer, agriculturalist, ...

Biography

He was born in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

in 1838. He was fourteen years of age when his family immigrated to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

in 1852. As a young man he made a fortune through shrewd investments in

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

and Nevada mining companies and was eventually appointed president of the

San Francisco Stock Exchange The San Francisco Stock and Bond Exchange was a regional stock exchange based in San Francisco, California, United States. Founded in 1882, in 1928 the exchange purchased and began using the name San Francisco Stock Exchange, while the old San Fran ...

. Wanting to expand his business opportunities, in 1876 he relocated to the heart of the country's financial center in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. While living there, he became interested in horse racing and began investing heavily in a stable of

Thoroughbred The Thoroughbred is a horse breed best known for its use in horse racing. Although the word ''thoroughbred'' is sometimes used to refer to any breed of purebred horse, it technically refers only to the Thoroughbred breed. Thoroughbreds are ...

race horses Race Horses were a Welsh band based in Cardiff, Wales and originally from Aberystwyth. Formed in 2005 as Radio Luxembourg, they changed their name in 2009 due to possible legal problems with the radio station of the same name. Initially the m ...

. His

colt Colt(s) or COLT may refer to: *Colt (horse), an intact (uncastrated) male horse under four years of age People * Colt (given name) *Colt (surname) Places *Colt, Arkansas, United States *Colt, Louisiana, an unincorporated community, United States ...

Spendthrift won the 1879 Belmont Stakes, and after Pierre Lorillard had shipped some of his American-bred horses to race in

and became the first American owner to win The Derby, Keene followed suit. In 1881, his horse Foxhall, named for his son, became the first American horse to win the

Grand Prix de Paris The Grand Prix de Paris is a Group 1 flat horse race in France open to three-year-old thoroughbred colts and fillies. It is run at Longchamp over a distance of 2,400 metres (about 1½ miles), and i ...

, then the most important race in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

. The following year Foxhall, trained in England by William Day, won England's Ascot Gold Cup. However, in 1884 huge losses in the

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

grain market The grain trade refers to the local and international trade in cereals and other food grains such as wheat, barley, maize, and rice. Grain is an important trade item because it is easily stored and transported with limited spoilage, unlike other ...

cost him everything he owned, leaving him with nothing but heavy debts. He began a remarkable comeback a few years later after being hired by Wall Street investor William Havemeyer to manage a stock fund. Such were his talents at

market manipulation In economics and finance, market manipulation is a type of market abuse where there is a deliberate attempt to interfere with the free and fair operation of the market; the most blatant of cases involve creating false or misleading appearances ...

that he was soon engaged by

J. P. Morgan John Pierpont Morgan Sr. (April 17, 1837 – March 31, 1913) was an American financier and investment banker who dominated corporate finance on Wall Street throughout the Gilded Age. As the head of the banking firm that ultimately became known ...

and

William Rockefeller William Avery Rockefeller Jr. (May 31, 1841 – June 24, 1922) was an American businessman and financier. Rockefeller was a co-founder of Standard Oil along with his elder brother John Davison Rockefeller. He was also part owner of the Anaconda ...

to manage funds for them and Keene emerged once again as a wealthy and powerful force in the New York financial community. By 1891 James R. Keene was back to investing in racehorses and his

Castleton Farm Castleton Lyons near Lexington, Kentucky, is an American horse-racing stable and breeding business best known by the name Castleton Farm. History The farm was established in 1793 when Virginian John Breckinridge, a future U.S. senator and a ...

near Lexington, Kentucky became one of the most important breeding operations in the history of American horse racing. In the early 1890s, Keene bought over forty English mares and shipped them to Castleton for breeding. Keene hired his brother-in-law, Major Foxhall Daingerfield, to run Castleton Farm and for his racing stable he hired James G. Rowe, Sr. as a trainer. He returned to racing in England, this time involving his son Foxhall P. Keene in the racing stable. Their filly Cap and Bells II won the 1901

Epsom Oaks The Oaks Stakes is a Group 1 flat horse race in Great Britain open to three-year-old fillies. It is run at Epsom Downs over a distance of 1 mile, 4 furlongs and 6 yards ...

. In 1908, ''London Sportsman'' magazine wrote that Keene possessed, "the greatest lot of racehorses ever owned by one man." James R. Keene bred National Museum of Racing and Hall of Famer Kingston and owned

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, as well as breeding and owning future Hall of Famer inductees Colin,

Peter Pan Peter Pan is a fictional character created by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie. A free-spirited and mischievous young boy who can fly and never grows up, Peter Pan spends his never-ending childhood having adventures on the mythi ...

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, Maskette, and Sysonby. Keene owned six Belmont Stakes winners but at a time when transporting horses south to other racetracks via railroad was a long, costly, and often risky venture, he never entered his horses in the Kentucky Derby, and won the

Preakness Stakes The Preakness Stakes is an American thoroughbred horse race held on Armed Forces Day which is also the third Saturday in May each year at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Maryland. It is a Grade I race run over a distance of 9.5 furlongs () o ...

only once. He died on January 3, 1913, of an acute stomach ailment at Miss Alston's House for Private Patients in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

. He was interred in Woodlawn Cemetery in

The Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

. He was vice-Chairman of

The Jockey Club The Jockey Club is the breed registry for Thoroughbred horses in the United States and Canada. It is dedicated to the improvement of Thoroughbred breeding and racing and fulfills that mandate by serving many segments of the industry through its s ...

at the time of his passing.

Family

In 1863 he married Sara Jay Daingerfield of Virginia with whom he had son Foxhall and a daughter, Jessica. Sara Keene died in 1916 and is interred in Woodlawn Cemetery next to her husband. Biographer Alden Hatch collaborated with Foxhall Keene to write James R. Keene's biography titled ''Full Tilt'' that was published in 1938 by Derrydale Press.

Racing

In 2019, James R. Keene was voted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame as one of its esteemed Pillars of the Turf. ;Preakness Stakes winner: *1894 :

Assignee An assignment is a legal term used in the context of the law of contract and of property. In both instances, assignment is the process e whereby a person, the ''assignor'', transfers rights or benefits to another, the ''assignee''.For the assig ...

;Belmont Stakes winners: *1879 :

Spendthrift A spendthrift (also profligate or prodigal) is someone who is extravagant and recklessly wasteful with money, often to a point where the spending climbs well beyond his or her means. "Spendthrift" derives from an obsolete sense of the word "thrift" ...

*1901 :

*1904 :

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders ...

*1907 :

*1908 : Colin *1910 :

Sweep Sweep or swept may refer to: Cleaning * Sweep, the action of using a brush to clean * Chimney sweep, a worker who clears ash and soot from chimneys * Street sweeper, a person's occupation, or a machine that cleans streets * Swept quartz, a cleani ...

References

External links

* Bowen, Edward L. '' Legacies of the Turf'' (2003) Eclipse Press * Alden Hatch and Keene, Foxhall. ''Full Tilt. The Sporting Memoirs of Foxhall Keene'' (1938) Derrydale Press
Dispersal of James R. Keene's racing operations
{{DEFAULTSORT:Keene, James R. 1838 births 1913 deaths Stockbrokers Stock and commodity market managers American racehorse owners and breeders Owners of Kentucky Derby winners British racehorse owners and breeders Sportspeople from London United States Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame inductees People from Cedarhurst, New York 19th-century American businesspeople