Idle Hour Stock Farm was a 400 acre (1.6 km²) thoroughbred horse breeding and training farm near Lexington, Kentucky, United States established in 1906 by Colonel Edward R. Bradley.
Beginning with the sire, Black Toney, and a roster of quality broodmares, Idle Hour Farm bred great champions such as the 1929 Horse of the Year Blue Larkspur and the Champion Three-Year-Old Colt, Bimelech. In 1931, the farm acquired the mare La Troienne from noted French breeder Marcel Boussac. La Troienne became one of the most influential mares to be imported into the U.S. in the 20th century. Her offspring produced champions including Idle Hour Farm's Bimlech, and its own two-year-old Champion Filly of 1944 and the 1945 Horse of the Year, Busher who was sold to movie mogul Louis B. Mayer. Later generation champions such as Buckpasser and Easy Goer trace their line to La Troienne.
As well, under farm manager Olin B. Gentry and future Hall of Fame trainer "Derby Dick" Thompson, and later trainer Bill Hurley, the farm raced horses that won numerous major stakes races, including multiple winners in each of the U.S. Triple Crown events.
As part of a program honoring important horse racing tracks and racing stables, the Pennsylvania Railroad named its baggage car #5846 the "Idle Hour Stock Farm".
After Colonel Bradley's death in 1946, Ogden Phipps purchased a group of Idle Hour's bloodstock that became the basis for what became Phipps' major horse racing operation. Allen T. Simmons purchased Idle Hour Farm at auction and the property was divided into smaller parcels. The portion on the southern side of Old Frankfort Pike was purchased by King Ranch while a southern parcel was sold to Dan and Ada Rice and became a satellite operation of their Danada Farm in Wheaton, Illinois. The core of the farm, on the north side of Old Frankfort Pike, was bought by Charles W. Moore who called it Circle M Farm. Moore owned it for only a short time before selling it to the John W. Galbreath family in 1949 who renamed it Darby Dan Farm.
Major race victories (partial list):
- Kentucky Derby - (1921, 1926, 1932, 1933)
- Preakness Stakes - (1932, 1940)
- Belmont Stakes - (1929, 1940)
- Saratoga Special Stakes - (1928, 1934, 1939)
- Hopeful Stakes - (1933, 1939, 1946)
Famous quotes containing the words idle, hour, stock and/or farm:
“One person tells an idle story; ten thousand repeat it as truth.”
—Chinese proverb.
““Although our love is waning, let us stand
By the lone border of the lake once more,
Together in that hour of gentleness
When the poor tired child, Passion, falls asleep....””
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“A man acquainted with history may, in some respect, be said to have lived from the beginning of the world, and to have been making continual additions to his stock of knowledge in every century.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“It might be seen by what tenure men held the earth. The smallest stream is mediterranean sea, a smaller ocean creek within the land, where men may steer by their farm bounds and cottage lights. For my own part, but for the geographers, I should hardly have known how large a portion of our globe is water, my life has chiefly passed within so deep a cove. Yet I have sometimes ventured as far as to the mouth of my Snug Harbor.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)