Part one

THE LEGENDARY HORSE

Four moments, eight years and one long shot that changed racing and music history.

Lexington, Kentucky

The shot

The gates of the Madden family farm near Lexington

Born weak on the Madden family farm, the foal was revived with a shot of Bourbon.

Never Say Die was foaled in Lexington in 1951, a chestnut colt with a white blaze and three white feet. He was bred by Robert Sterling Clark, the American art collector and heir to the Singer sewing machine fortune.

He came into the world so weak that few expected him to last the night. A shot of Bourbon whiskey revived him, and the name he was given honored the fight he showed in the very first moments of his life.

Epsom, England

The race

Never Say Die led in through the crowd after the Derby

Sent to England, the Kentucky colt won the Derby as a 33 to 1 outsider.

On June 2, 1954, a quarter of a million people braved miserable weather at Epsom Downs for the 175th running of the Derby. Queen Elizabeth II and Sir Winston Churchill were among them, and the crowd fully expected a British colt to win.

Ridden by an 18-year-old Lester Piggott, Never Say Die went off at 33 to 1 and won by two lengths. He was the first American-born horse to win the Epsom Derby in over 70 years, and his victory helped turn the Bluegrass into the center of the international Thoroughbred industry.

Liverpool, England

The bet

Mona Best backed the long shot. Her winnings changed her family's fortunes.

Two hundred miles north, in Liverpool, Mona Best pawned her jewelry to put money on the American outsider nobody else fancied.

When Never Say Die came home at 33 to 1, her well-placed bet changed the family's fortunes. With her winnings, she bought her dream home, a 15-room, Victorian-style house in Liverpool.

West Derby, England

The Casbah

She opened the Casbah Coffee Club, where the Beatles played some of their earliest gigs.

The winnings made the Casbah possible. In 1959 Mona opened the coffee club in the cellar of the family home in West Derby, and the Quarrymen, soon to be the Beatles, played on opening night.

Her son, Pete Best, became the Beatles’ drummer and was behind the kit through their Hamburg years, where 8+ hour sets night after night forged the sound millions would fall in love with.

A Kentucky colt, a shot of Bourbon and one long shot at Epsom had changed the course of both racing and music history. Never let life pass you by.

Source: James C. Nicholson, Never Say Die: A Kentucky Colt, the Epsom Derby, and the Rise of the Modern Thoroughbred Industry (University Press of Kentucky, 2013)

The field comes home at Epsom, June 1954.

Never Say Die isn't just a name. It's a mindset, an attitude, a way of life.

Martha Dalton, co-founder

Up next · Part twoTHE BOLD FOUNDING