| In 1877 parimutuel betting had a feeble trial at Morris | | | | on Kentucky Derby Day parimutuel betting was |
| and Jerome Parks in New York, but the bookmakers | | | | conducted on a large scale for the first time in the |
| soon killed it. They continued to monopolize race track | | | | United States. |
| betting until 1908 when parimutuel betting secured a | | | | Colonel Winn's experiment was so popular that the |
| foothold in this country entirely by accident. The newly | | | | Maryland Jockey Club at Pimlico tried the parimutuel |
| appointed Sheriff Scott Bullitt of Louisville, Kentucky, | | | | system the next year side by side with the regular |
| charged that bookmaking was a violation of the law | | | | bookmakers operating at the track. So successful |
| and that it would no longer be tolerated in Jefferson | | | | was it that other racing associations began to adopt |
| County in which Churchill Downs was located. Mayor | | | | the system. |
| Grinstead of Louisville, a violent foe of race track | | | | Under the dominance of bookmakers, many of whom |
| gambling, upheld the Sheriff by threatening to send city | | | | were either unscrupulous or downright dishonest, racing |
| police to the track to enforce the edict. It was a blow | | | | had reached such a low estate that its eventual death |
| to Colonel Matt J. Winn, director of Churchill Downs, | | | | seemed to be in sight. Holiest men who looked upon |
| because it meant no revenue from betting on the | | | | racing as a sport and breeders who were sincerely |
| Kentucky Derby; but Mayor Grinstead and Sheriff | | | | interested in improving the breed hailed the parimutuel |
| Bullitt had met their match. Colonel Winn examined the | | | | system as the savior of racing. They became |
| local statutes and discovered that, although gambling | | | | crusaders against the bookmakers, using the |
| was prohibited, parimutuel betting was not. As a result, | | | | parimutuel system as their sword of battle. |