Mexico, Missouri: The Saddle Horse Capital of the World

Mexico, Missouri called itself the Saddle Horse Capital of the World, and it was not an idle boast. The city is set in the bluegrass belt of central Missouri, and from the eighteen seventies onward Audrain County became one of the most productive centers for American Saddlebred horse breeding in the country. Kentucky stock brought to the region in the nineteenth century became the foundation of local breeding.

By the late nineteenth century many trainers were working in and around Audrain County, and Mexico was the shipping point for animals sold across the United States and exported abroad. The legacy is preserved today at a saddle horse museum in the city. Mexico was incorporated in eighteen fifty-five, chartered as a city in eighteen seventy-four, and remains the county seat of Audrain County, a market town whose horse-breeding heritage is still visible in the farms and show barns scattered across the surrounding countryside.