[MSN] Kentucky Derby Museum on hunt for missing Derby trophies

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Kentucky Derby Museum on hunt for missing Derby trophies
Associated Press

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Like all good detectives, Joyce Trammell worked the phones, wrote letters, traveled and ran across a little bit of luck.

Trammell, a researcher for the Kentucky Derby Museum, was trying to find all of the missing Kentucky Derby trophies awarded since the prize was first given in 1922 - and she found about 30 of them.

"It was almost like fitting a puzzle together," Trammell said of the search.

Fourteen of the trophies are still missing. Now, the museum is hoping publicity will help Trammell find the rest of the monuments to the pinnacle of American horse racing in time for a planned exhibit to mark the museum's 25th anniversary in 2010.

Lynn Ashton, executive director of the museum, said the trophies will be loaned to the museum for a nine-month exhibit displaying nine or 10 trophies at a time.

"What we're going to be doing when we do this is looking at the trophy as a piece of art, looking at its place in the world of sports trophy-dom," she said.

The Derby Museum has nine trophies, including one replica, one restored trophy and one copy.

The Kentucky Horse Park has the largest collection of Derby trophies, including the eight awards won by Calumet Farm.

With more recent trophies, museum curator Jay Ferguson said the museum hasn't had a chance to chase all its leads.

"When you start getting into the '70s, we have leads ... but haven't been able to confirm where the trophies are," he said.

At least two of the missing trophies have been stolen, while others have been misplaced, the current owners have been unreachable or the museum has simply lost track of who has them now, Ashton said.

Along with a plethora of racing memorabilia, someone stole the 1924 award given to Rosa M. Hoots, the first woman to breed a Derby champion - Black Gold - in the 1930s from her Tulsa, Okla., home.

Four of the trophies are from the 1920s, and the rest are sprinkled over every decade since, except the '90s. Saudi Prince Ahmed bin Salman, owner of 2002 winner War Emblem, died months after winning the Derby. His trophy was sent to Richard Mulhall, racing manager for the prince's The Thoroughbred Corp., in California, and the trophy may be in Saudi Arabia now.

In some cases, families don't realize they have a Derby trophy in the family, Ashton said.

"That would be something ... you would talk about forever in your life," she said. "Forever. And it would be handed down from generation to generation."

Theresa Collins, great-granddaughter of Rosa Hoots, said her family picked up the search for the 1924 Black Gold trophy after she and her sister attended the 1994 Derby.

"I never knew how bad I wanted to find it until I went to that Derby," she said.

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