Lauretta died when Jim Key was a young foal, but the colt hardly noticed because of his relationship with his breeder and owner, William “Bill” Key. From Beautiful Jim Key by Mim Eichler Rivas As with many other motherless foals, Jim became attached to his human caregiver and began to develop quirky, almost human-like behavior.īeautiful Jim Key's tent at a Rhode Island appearance, designed by Albert Rogers. William Key originally intended to give the colt a biblical name, but the foal was so homely and clumsy that he simple called him “Jim” and gave him his own last name, Key. She became a useful marketing tool for Key: He traveled throughout the South peddling his Keystone Liniment as a cure-all for horses, and Lauretta was an excellent example of a horse that had benefited from the liniment’s properties.Īfter Lauretta foaled a colt by Tennessee Volunteer in 1889, the mare’s health deteriorated rapidly and her spindly-legged colt essentially became an orphan.
William Key, the former slave, Tennessee businessman, and self-taught veterinarian, bought Lauretta and nursed her back to health. where she suffered mistreatment and neglect.
After her popularity began to wane, Lauretta was sold to low-rent circuses in the U.S. Barnum to tour Europe as a circus performer. Jim Key was sired by Tennessee Volunteer of trotter bloodlines and out of the legendary Lauretta “Queen of Horses,” an Arabian mare who was allegedly stolen from a sheikh in Persia and sold to P.T. Jim Key with his owner and trainer, William Key.
0 kommentar(er)
