Woodlawn Vase
Encyclopedia
The Woodlawn Vase is an American trophy given annually to the winning owner of the Preakness Stakes
at Pimlico Race Course
in Baltimore, Maryland
.
is run each year on the third Saturday of May, the winners are awarded the Woodlawn Vase on national television. The vase was first awarded in 1861 to a stakes winning mare named Molly Jackson in Louisville, Kentucky
. In 1917, the Woodlawn Vase became the official trophy for the winner of second jewel of the Triple Crown and was awarded to the Preakness winner Kalitan. For many years the trophy was given to the winning owner to keep for one year until the next running of the race. In 1953, Native Dancer
won the Preakness Stakes and the wife of winning owner Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt II (Jeanne Murray Vanderbilt) declined to take annual possession of the trophy because of its monetary and sentimental value to the sport. Following 1953, the winning owner of the horse that won The Preakness Stakes was no longer allowed to keep the trophy for the year. In 1983, the trophy's silver design was appraised by Tiffany and Company of New York (the original creator in 1860) as priceless but a figure of $1,000,000 was established for insurance purposes. The appraised value is now reported to exceed $4,000,000.00 in replacement value. The original trophy is kept at the Baltimore Museum of Art
in Maryland and brought to "The Preakness Stakes" each year escorted by Maryland Army National Guard
Soldiers and Air National Guard Airmen in their dress uniforms donning white gloves for proper care during transportation to the "Old Hilltop's" cupola winner's circle for the presentation ceremony.
"Messrs. Tiffany & Co., the celebrated jewelers, on Tuesday last, sent to Louisville, KY a massive silver vase, for the Woodlawn Race Course Association, the most elegant of its kind ever made anywhere in the world. Its entire height is 36 inches, its weight is four hundred ounces, and its value $1,500. The base of this piece is a circle thirteen inches in diameter, supported upon a cross, then four projections of which are faced each with a race shoe; and on the top of each projection is a racing saddle, whip, jockey cap, etc. The upper part of the base represents a lawn, divided into fields by a rustic fence. In one field is seen a stallion and in the other a mare and foal. On either side of the pillar is a bulletin, on which the rules to be observed in contending for the prize are distinctly engraved. The centerpiece, or bowl, is fourteen inches above the base, and fourteen inches in diameter, and has four shields. On one of these is engraved the picture of a race horse, on another a representations of the Woodlawn Race Course, on another is a blank for the history of the winning of the prize, and the other also blank for a portrait of the winner. Between the shields are four figures of Victory, in frosted silver, each holding a wreath in either hand. Seven inches above the bowl is a circular ornament nine inches in diameter, having engraved on it the portraits of eight officers of the Woodlawn Race Course Association. The whole is surmounted by a full figure of the horse "Lexington"
mounted by a jockey in costume.
, Kentucky
, Elizabeth
, New Jersey
, the Sheepshead Bay Race Track
, New York, Jerome Park Racetrack
, New York, Morris Park Racecourse
, New York, and since 1917, at Pimlico Race Course
in Baltimore
, Maryland. Created as a challenge cup, the Woodlawn Vase was first won by Capt. Thomas G. Moore's mare, Mollie Jackson, in 1861. This excerpt appeared in the newspaper that week, "The rules under which this prize is to be contended for are such that a man who wins it on the first trial (which is to occur on Saturday, the 18th instant of the year) is to give bonds to produce the Vase for future trials; and no one is entitled to it without giving such bonds, until he has won it three successive times. The challengers for the Vase, who name their horses to the post will be listed in the paper and the result reported for perpetuity in time in our next paper." The same owner retained possession the following year through the victory of the famous mare "Idlewild." The outbreak of the Civil War prevented further competition until 1866. The vase in the meantime was buried at Woodlawn Farm in Kentucky with the Moore family silver and jewelry, lest it be discovered and melted into shot for Confederate Army soldiers.
Following the war, the vase remained in Kentucky for 13 years until 1878, when the Dwyer Brothers Stable
captured it by the aid of their colt "Bramble" and trainer Jim McLaughlin
in the American Stallion Stakes at Churchill Downs
, in Louisville, Kentucky. The Dwyer Brothers presented the vase to the Coney Island Jockey Club, where notable stables of the day competed vigorously for the vase for the next 25 years.
The first running at Morris Park Racecourse took place on October 26, 1901. It was won by Gold Heels
, whose trainer, Matthew Allen, had been part of the training staff at Louisville, Kentucky for 1861 winner, Mollie Jackson.
Thomas C. Clyde, owner of Goughacres Stable, won possession through the double victory of his homebred colt "Shorthose" in 1903 and 1904. "Shorthose" was the only horse - with the exception of the wonderful Miss Woodford - to win it twice. In 1917, Mr. Clyde presented the vase to the Maryland Jockey Club, of which he was a director. It was added to the Preakness that year, though Clyde proposed a condition - the winning owner should keep the vase for the year, and have the privilege of naming the course and the stake for its renewal. Edward R. Bradley's
Kalitan was the first winner of the vase at Pimlico.
The vase was presented to the winning Preakness owner each year – although the latter part of Clyde's condition did not prevail. In 1953, when Alfred G. Vanderbilt's Native Dancer
won the trophy and proclaimed, "Due to the historic value of the legendary trophy and Mrs. Vanderbilt preference not to accept responsibility for the vase's safekeeping until the next year's Preakness," that the trophy be permanently kept and protected by the Maryland Jockey Club
.
under the direction of The Maryland Historical Society and is brought to Pimlico Race Course under guard by Maryland National Guard and Air National Airman in dress uniform for the annual running of the Preakness.
Preakness Stakes
The Preakness Stakes is an American flat Thoroughbred horse race for three-year-olds held on 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 on dirt. Colts and geldings carry 126 pounds ; fillies 121 lb...
at Pimlico Race Course
Pimlico Race Course
Pimlico Race Course is a horse racetrack in Baltimore, Maryland, most famous for hosting the Preakness Stakes. Its name is derived from the 1660s when English settlers named the area where the facility currently stands in honor of Olde Ben Pimlico's Tavern in London...
in Baltimore, Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
.
Overview of the trophy
After the Preakness StakesPreakness Stakes
The Preakness Stakes is an American flat Thoroughbred horse race for three-year-olds held on 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 on dirt. Colts and geldings carry 126 pounds ; fillies 121 lb...
is run each year on the third Saturday of May, the winners are awarded the Woodlawn Vase on national television. The vase was first awarded in 1861 to a stakes winning mare named Molly Jackson in Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
. In 1917, the Woodlawn Vase became the official trophy for the winner of second jewel of the Triple Crown and was awarded to the Preakness winner Kalitan. For many years the trophy was given to the winning owner to keep for one year until the next running of the race. In 1953, Native Dancer
Native Dancer
Native Dancer , nicknamed the Grey Ghost, was one of the most celebrated and accomplished Thoroughbred racehorses in history, the first horse made famous through the medium of television. He was one of the best horses produced in USA after the war...
won the Preakness Stakes and the wife of winning owner Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt II (Jeanne Murray Vanderbilt) declined to take annual possession of the trophy because of its monetary and sentimental value to the sport. Following 1953, the winning owner of the horse that won The Preakness Stakes was no longer allowed to keep the trophy for the year. In 1983, the trophy's silver design was appraised by Tiffany and Company of New York (the original creator in 1860) as priceless but a figure of $1,000,000 was established for insurance purposes. The appraised value is now reported to exceed $4,000,000.00 in replacement value. The original trophy is kept at the Baltimore Museum of Art
Baltimore Museum of Art
The Baltimore Museum of Art in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, was founded in 1914. Built in the Roman Temple style, the Museum is home to an internationally renowned collection of 19th-century, modern, and contemporary art. Founded in 1914 with a single painting, the BMA today has 90,000 works...
in Maryland and brought to "The Preakness Stakes" each year escorted by Maryland Army National Guard
Maryland Army National Guard
The Maryland Army National Guard is the Army component of the organized militia of the State of Maryland. It is headquartered at the Fifth Regiment Armory in Baltimore and has units at armories and other facilities across the state....
Soldiers and Air National Guard Airmen in their dress uniforms donning white gloves for proper care during transportation to the "Old Hilltop's" cupola winner's circle for the presentation ceremony.
Dimensions and description of the vase
Standing 36 inches tall and weighing 400 ounces of solid sterling silver (approx. 30 pounds), the Woodlawn vase has a colorful history as rich as the classic race at which it is presented. The following is an excerpt from Wilkes B. Spirit of "The Times, The American Gentleman's Newspaper" in 1860:"Messrs. Tiffany & Co., the celebrated jewelers, on Tuesday last, sent to Louisville, KY a massive silver vase, for the Woodlawn Race Course Association, the most elegant of its kind ever made anywhere in the world. Its entire height is 36 inches, its weight is four hundred ounces, and its value $1,500. The base of this piece is a circle thirteen inches in diameter, supported upon a cross, then four projections of which are faced each with a race shoe; and on the top of each projection is a racing saddle, whip, jockey cap, etc. The upper part of the base represents a lawn, divided into fields by a rustic fence. In one field is seen a stallion and in the other a mare and foal. On either side of the pillar is a bulletin, on which the rules to be observed in contending for the prize are distinctly engraved. The centerpiece, or bowl, is fourteen inches above the base, and fourteen inches in diameter, and has four shields. On one of these is engraved the picture of a race horse, on another a representations of the Woodlawn Race Course, on another is a blank for the history of the winning of the prize, and the other also blank for a portrait of the winner. Between the shields are four figures of Victory, in frosted silver, each holding a wreath in either hand. Seven inches above the bowl is a circular ornament nine inches in diameter, having engraved on it the portraits of eight officers of the Woodlawn Race Course Association. The whole is surmounted by a full figure of the horse "Lexington"
Lexington (horse)
Lexington was a United States Thoroughbred race horse who won six of his seven race starts. Perhaps his greatest fame came however as the most successful sire of the second half of the nineteenth century; he was the Leading sire in North America 16 times, and of his many brood mare and racer...
mounted by a jockey in costume.
History of the vase
It has been raced for in LouisvilleLouisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
, Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
, Elizabeth
Elizabeth, New Jersey
Elizabeth is a city in Union County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city had a total population of 124,969, retaining its ranking as New Jersey's fourth largest city with an increase of 4,401 residents from its 2000 Census population of 120,568...
, New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
, the Sheepshead Bay Race Track
Sheepshead Bay Race Track
Sheepshead Bay Race Track was an American Thoroughbred horse racing facility built on the site of the Coney Island Jockey Club at Sheepshead Bay, New York...
, New York, Jerome Park Racetrack
Jerome Park Racetrack
Jerome Park Racetrack was an American thoroughbred horse racing facility.-History:It opened in 1866 in the northwest part of Fordham, Westchester County , New York....
, New York, Morris Park Racecourse
Morris Park Racecourse
Morris Park Racecourse was an American thoroughbred horse racing facility from 1889 until 1904. It was located in a part of Westchester County, New York that was annexed into the Bronx in 1895 and later became known as Morris Park...
, New York, and since 1917, at Pimlico Race Course
Pimlico Race Course
Pimlico Race Course is a horse racetrack in Baltimore, Maryland, most famous for hosting the Preakness Stakes. Its name is derived from the 1660s when English settlers named the area where the facility currently stands in honor of Olde Ben Pimlico's Tavern in London...
in Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
, Maryland. Created as a challenge cup, the Woodlawn Vase was first won by Capt. Thomas G. Moore's mare, Mollie Jackson, in 1861. This excerpt appeared in the newspaper that week, "The rules under which this prize is to be contended for are such that a man who wins it on the first trial (which is to occur on Saturday, the 18th instant of the year) is to give bonds to produce the Vase for future trials; and no one is entitled to it without giving such bonds, until he has won it three successive times. The challengers for the Vase, who name their horses to the post will be listed in the paper and the result reported for perpetuity in time in our next paper." The same owner retained possession the following year through the victory of the famous mare "Idlewild." The outbreak of the Civil War prevented further competition until 1866. The vase in the meantime was buried at Woodlawn Farm in Kentucky with the Moore family silver and jewelry, lest it be discovered and melted into shot for Confederate Army soldiers.
Following the war, the vase remained in Kentucky for 13 years until 1878, when the Dwyer Brothers Stable
Dwyer Brothers Stable
Dwyer Brothers Stable was an American thoroughbred horse racing operation owned by Brooklyn, New York businessmen, Phil and Mike Dwyer.The Dwyer brothers hired trainer Evert Snedecker and purchased their first Thoroughbred, Rhadamanthus, in 1874. In October of that same year they acquired Vigil...
captured it by the aid of their colt "Bramble" and trainer Jim McLaughlin
Jim McLaughlin
James "Jim" McLaughlin was an American thoroughbred race horse jockey.Orphaned and homeless in his early teens, McLaughlin was taken in by horse trainer William Daly who taught him how to ride. While individual statistics from all of McLaughlin's career races aren't documented, McLaughlin began...
in the American Stallion Stakes at Churchill Downs
Churchill Downs
Churchill Downs, located in Central Avenue in south Louisville, Kentucky, United States, is a Thoroughbred racetrack most famous for hosting the Kentucky Derby annually. It officially opened in 1875, and held the first Kentucky Derby and the first Kentucky Oaks in the same year. Churchill Downs...
, in Louisville, Kentucky. The Dwyer Brothers presented the vase to the Coney Island Jockey Club, where notable stables of the day competed vigorously for the vase for the next 25 years.
The first running at Morris Park Racecourse took place on October 26, 1901. It was won by Gold Heels
Gold Heels
Gold Heels was an American Thoroughbred Champion racehorse who, in a two-year period, set one new stakers record and four track records, including a world record.-Background:...
, whose trainer, Matthew Allen, had been part of the training staff at Louisville, Kentucky for 1861 winner, Mollie Jackson.
Thomas C. Clyde, owner of Goughacres Stable, won possession through the double victory of his homebred colt "Shorthose" in 1903 and 1904. "Shorthose" was the only horse - with the exception of the wonderful Miss Woodford - to win it twice. In 1917, Mr. Clyde presented the vase to the Maryland Jockey Club, of which he was a director. It was added to the Preakness that year, though Clyde proposed a condition - the winning owner should keep the vase for the year, and have the privilege of naming the course and the stake for its renewal. Edward R. Bradley's
Edward R. Bradley
Colonel Edward Riley Bradley was an American steel mill laborer, gold miner, businessman and philanthropist. As well as a race track proprietor, he was the preeminent owner and breeder of Thoroughbred racehorses in the Southern United States during the first three decades of the 20th Century...
Kalitan was the first winner of the vase at Pimlico.
The vase was presented to the winning Preakness owner each year – although the latter part of Clyde's condition did not prevail. In 1953, when Alfred G. Vanderbilt's Native Dancer
Native Dancer
Native Dancer , nicknamed the Grey Ghost, was one of the most celebrated and accomplished Thoroughbred racehorses in history, the first horse made famous through the medium of television. He was one of the best horses produced in USA after the war...
won the trophy and proclaimed, "Due to the historic value of the legendary trophy and Mrs. Vanderbilt preference not to accept responsibility for the vase's safekeeping until the next year's Preakness," that the trophy be permanently kept and protected by the Maryland Jockey Club
Maryland Jockey Club
The Maryland Jockey Club is a sporting organization dedicated to horse racing, founded in Annapolis in 1743. The Jockey Club was founded more than 30 years before the start of the Revolutionary War and is chartered as the oldest sporting organization in North America...
.
Owner, trainer and jockey replicas
Eventually, a one third-size (35% of scale) solid sterling silver reproduction of the trophy valued at $40,000 is given annually to the winning owner to keep permanently. It is made each year at a height of 14" with twelve pounds of silver, composed of fourteen large parts and 36 little parts all intricately crafted together. The winning trainer and jockey are given a solid sterling silver cups that looks similar to the trophy valued at $15,000 each standing at a foot tall. The smaller solid sterling silver replica requires sixteen weeks work of one of the nation's most skilled silversmiths, Kirk Stieff. It is awarded to the winning owner of the Preakness Stakes on a permanent basis. The perpetual trophy is now on display at The Baltimore Museum of ArtBaltimore Museum of Art
The Baltimore Museum of Art in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, was founded in 1914. Built in the Roman Temple style, the Museum is home to an internationally renowned collection of 19th-century, modern, and contemporary art. Founded in 1914 with a single painting, the BMA today has 90,000 works...
under the direction of The Maryland Historical Society and is brought to Pimlico Race Course under guard by Maryland National Guard and Air National Airman in dress uniform for the annual running of the Preakness.
Original home
This is text from a Kentucky Historical Marker near the former site of the track:"Woodlawn Race Course - Opened in 1859 and drew national attention. Closed after Civil WarAmerican Civil WarThe American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. R. A. AlexanderRobert A. AlexanderRobert Aitcheson Alexander was an American breeder of Thoroughbred and Standardbred horses. Born on a farm near Midway, Woodford County, Kentucky, he and his siblings inherited the property on his father's death....
, noted breeder, was major figure in buying estate for National Racing Association. He contracted with Tiffany'sTiffany & Co.Tiffany & Co. is an American jewelry and silverware company. As part of its branding, the company is strongly associated with its Tiffany Blue , which is a registered trademark.- History :...
to design Woodlawn Vase in 1860 and first used in 1861 and 1862. It was buried for safety during the Cival War. The Vase is now winner's trophy at the Preakness Stakes, where a replica is given each year."