Word: klebergs
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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This same interest in breeding got Kleberg interested in horse racing. He thought more thoroughbred blood would improve his ranch horses. He came back from the race tracks at Louisville and Saratoga with two carloads of thoroughbreds, and put them to "improving the breed." His horses turned out to have bigger chests and heavier forelegs than Kentucky breeders liked. They also ran faster than Kentuckians liked. The King Ranch's Assault won the triple crown-the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont...
...Jacobs. The cream-and-brown King Ranch racing colors have won all but a few of the nation's major racing classics, including the Santa Anita Derby, the Preakness, the Belmont Stakes, the Saratoga Special, a score of others. Trainer Hirsch summed up what Kleberg was trying to do: "Either Assault or Stymie would make crack cow horses." In the words of a cattleman, "cow horses can start fast, turn on a dime and give you 9? change...
Once, when Bob Kleberg was holding forth on what scientific breeding can accomplish, a friend remarked: "But nobody can breed better people." Bob considered the possibilities for a minute, then said: "Don't know. Maybe you could. Nobody's ever tried...
Later, Captain King was opposed in a lawsuit by a blond-bearded young lawyer, Robert Justus Kleberg "The First," son of a German émigré. Kleberg won the suit, and King was so impressed that he hired him as his own lawyer. When Captain King died in 1885 at 60, he left his widow, Henrietta, 500,000 acres of land and a $500,000 debt. She asked Bob the First to manage the ranch. Soon he married her youngest daughter Alice...
Robert the First. Kleberg the First put the gaunt ranch back on its feet. To combat drought, which periodically killed off thousands of cattle, in 1893 Kleberg drilled the first artesian well in those parts. He built the first of the concrete water troughs for cattle which are now sprinkled around the ranch. He brought in English Shorthorns and Herefords, the railroad (Missouri Pacific), and founded Kingsville. He built the Santa Gertrudis main house...