Vagrant (horse)

While Virgil was still a little known sire, Vagrant was sold for just $250 to Thomas J. Nichols at the Preakness Stud 1874 yearling sale. A promising two-year-old, Vagrant won the 1875 Belle Meade Stakes, Alexander Stakes and Sanford Stakes while owned by Thomas J. Nichols, and sharing the title of U.S. Champion 2-Year-Old Colt with Parole that year.[3]

As a three-year-old, Vagrant won five of his six starts at up to a mile, and was clearly the top juvenile of 1876. That year, Vagrant won the Phoenix Hotel Stakes by 50 yards and also won the Grand Exposition Stakes in Philadelphia.^[3],[4}

After the Phoenix Stakes win and before the Kentucky Derby, millionaire William B. Astor, Jr. purchased Vagrant for $7,000, an impressive figure for a thoroughbred of that era.^[4]

The second Kentucky Derby was run on a fast track with a field of 11 horses.^[2] Vagrant won the Derby, with Robert Swim up, by two lengths over the betting favorite, Parole, winning a total of $2,950.^[2]

Vagrant injured his leg at the 1876 Philadelphia Grand Exposition Stakes and was rested for a season in 1877 until his leg healed in 1878.[4]

Vagrant was sold to James J. Bevins in the 1880s and raced under his name until 1882, when at the Jerome Park Racetrack, Vagrant became very lame after a race.[5] His racing stats list only one start in 1883, indicating that Vagrant, at age ten, was permanently retired from racing.

Vagrant was widely rumored to have been a vegetable cart horse in Lexington after his racing career, having been sold into this service sometime after 1883.[6]

A 1910 Daily Racing Form article states that Vagrant died at around 17 years of age (c. 1890) while being used as a saddle horse for a woman that lived in Long Island.[7]