Rare ticket to 1919 Kentucky Derby 1919 sells for $35,000

An "extremely rare" ticket to the 1919 Kentucky Derby sold for $35,000 on eBay on Thursday.

The eBay listing identifies the owner as "bigred1917" and indicates that 43 bids were made. Bigred1917 might be a resident of Lexington, Ky., or the area because the listing said the ticket could be picked up in the Central Kentucky city.

The 1919 Kentucky Derby was the 3-year-old debut for Sir Barton, who went on to become the first winner of the Triple Crown. Co-owned and -bred by John Madden of Kentucky, the son of Star Shoot was 0-for-6 as a 2-year-old.

"The top two Derby contenders were supposed to be Eternal and Billy Kelly, a stablemate of Sir Barton," according to Sir Barton's biography on the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame website. "With Hall of Famer John Loftus up and in a driving rain, Sir Barton led all the way, winning by five lengths over Billy Kelly to break his maiden in the Derby."

Four days later, he beat Eternal by four lengths to win the Preakness, and he then won the withers and the Belmont by five lengths in record time, with all four races occurring within 32 days.

Coming off a four-race win streak at age 4, he met Man o'War in a match race in October 1920 at Kenilworth Park in Windsor, Canada. The purse was $75,000, and the winner would get a $5,000 gold cup. Man o'War led the whole way and won by seven lengths, breaking the track record for 1 1/4 miles by six seconds.

Sir Barton raced three more times that year without a win before being retired to stud with a career record of 31: 13-6-5 from 31 starts and earnings of $116,857.

He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1957.