Historedia
Episode 1 of 2

Folk Song Creation

When
1878
Where
Kentucky folk tradition
Part of
Ten Broeck defeats Mollie McCarty at Louisville

The race inspired the traditional song "Molly and Tenbrooks," a fictional account of the 1878 match race between the Kentucky horse and the California mare.

The song, also known as "The Racehorse Song," describes Ten Broeck running around the Midwest and Mollie McCarty being beaten in Kentucky. It is a late 19th-century traditional song that immortalized the match race in bluegrass music.

Sources

  1. Molly and Tenbrooks Wikipedia, revision of 2026-08-16
  2. Mollie McCarty Wikipedia, revision of 2024-12-19
  3. Ten Broeck (horse) Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-18

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.