Lexington Trivia
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146 free Lexington trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
42 free Lexington trivia questions with answers. This Lexington quiz is built mainly around Lexington, Kentucky, the Horse Capital of the World: how the frontier camp got its name in 1775, why the region is called the Bluegrass, the horse farms, Keeneland and the Kentucky Horse Park, Rupp Arena and the Wildcats' eight national titles, Transylvania University, Henry Clay and Mary Todd Lincoln, bourbon rules and beer cheese, and the Nobel laureate and Hall of Fame jockey the city produced. Because searchers ask about more than one Lexington, it also drops in the essentials on Lexington, Massachusetts, where the Revolution's first shots were fired, and Lexington, Virginia, home of VMI. Questions start easy enough for a new arrival and build to details longtime residents will enjoy: the first urban growth boundary in the country, the peanut butter plant that out-produces every other, and the last racetrack in North America to install a public-address system. It suits a bar quiz off Limestone Street, a UK tailgate or a family game. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia and reference sources, and each question shows an explanation and its citation once you answer.
30 of 146 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Frontiersmen camped in Kentucky in June 1775 named the site Lexington after hearing news of what?
The opening battle in Massachusetts
The opening battle in Massachusetts, fought weeks earlier at Lexington, gave the camp its name, but no town followed: raids kept settlers away until a blockhouse went up in 1779.
Q 02Lexington, Kentucky's city government has been merged with which county since 1974?
Fayette
Fayette County and Lexington merged their governments in 1974, so the city limits now run all the way to the county line and take in the horse farms beyond the suburbs.
Q 03In 1958 Lexington enacted what national first to protect its surrounding horse farms?
An urban growth boundary
Lexington drew the nation's first urban growth boundary in 1958, confining new development to an urban service area, which is why horse farms begin so abruptly at the city's edge.
Q 04Keeneland Race Course runs its two short live meets each year in which two months?
April and October
April and October bring Keeneland's spring and fall meets; the track has changed so little that it stood in for 1930s Pimlico in the 2003 film Seabiscuit.
Q 05Keeneland was the last racecourse in North America to add what, holding out until 1997?
A track announcer
A track announcer first called a Keeneland race over the loudspeakers in 1997; for six decades the track had kept its stands quiet as a point of racing tradition.
Q 06Which horse won the Breeders' Cup Classic at Keeneland in 2015 to complete racing's first Grand Slam?
American Pharoah
American Pharoah added the Classic to his Triple Crown by six and a half lengths; no earlier Triple Crown winner had the chance, because the Breeders' Cup was first run in 1984.
Q 07Which champion is buried beneath his bronze statue near the entrance of the Kentucky Horse Park?
Man o' War
Man o' War was first buried at Faraway Farm, where he had stood at stud; his grave and its bronze statue were moved to the Kentucky Horse Park in the 1970s, before it opened.
Q 08In 2010 Lexington became the first city outside Europe to host which event?
The World Equestrian Games
The World Equestrian Games had never left Europe; Kentucky built a new indoor arena at the Kentucky Horse Park to stage them.
Q 09As of 2025, Kentucky's eight NCAA men's basketball titles trailed only which school's eleven?
UCLA
UCLA passed Kentucky, which had led the count with four titles by 1958, by winning ten in twelve seasons under John Wooden from 1964; Kentucky has added four since.
Q 10Adolph Rupp, namesake of the Wildcats' arena, was so superstitious that he coached every game wearing what?
A brown suit
A brown suit: as a young coach he wore a new blue one to a game, saw his team beaten badly, and never coached in another colour, which made him 'the Man in the Brown Suit'.
Q 11Which coach succeeded Rick Pitino and won Kentucky the 1998 national title?
Tubby Smith
Tubby Smith's first Kentucky team became the Comeback Cats, rallying from 17 points down against Duke and from ten behind at half-time in the final against Utah.
Q 12Which Civil War figure studied at Lexington's Transylvania University in the 1820s before going to West Point?
Jefferson Davis
Jefferson Davis spent a year at Transylvania before West Point; the university later named a dormitory for him, then demolished it in 2015 to build new halls.
Q 13Which Lexington harness-racing track, opened in 1875, is the oldest racecourse in the city?
The Red Mile
Q 21A factory in Lexington produces more of what than any other plant in the world?
Peanut butter
Peanut butter pours out of Lexington's Jif plant, the largest of its kind in the world; it began with a local brand, Big Top, which Procter & Gamble bought in 1955 and relaunched as Jif.
Q 22Lexmark, the printer maker founded in Lexington, was spun off in 1991 from which corporation?
IBM
IBM sold its Lexington typewriter, keyboard and printer business to the investment firm Clayton & Dubilier in March 1991, creating Lexmark; in 2025 the company was bought by its old rival Xerox.
Q 23Toyota's plant in Georgetown, near Lexington, has built which model ever since it opened in 1988?
Camry
The Red Mile is named for its one-mile oval of red clay; the second-oldest harness track in the world, it still stages the Kentucky Futurity, a leg of trotting's Triple Crown.
Q 14Which country star was born in Lexington in 1978 and raised in Kentucky's eastern coalfields?
Chris Stapleton
Chris Stapleton grew up in Staffordsville in a coal-mining family and spent a decade in Nashville writing songs for other artists before his 2015 debut album, Traveller, made him a star.
Q 15Lexington native Thomas Hunt Morgan won a 1933 Nobel Prize for work with which organism?
Fruit flies
Fruit flies bred in his 'Fly Room' in New York showed that genes sit on chromosomes; he had doubted Mendel's laws until a white-eyed male turned up among his red-eyed flies.
Q 16Which Lexington-raised jockey became the first to win the Kentucky Derby three times, in 1884, 1890 and 1891?
Isaac Murphy
Isaac Murphy won on Buchanan, Riley and Kingman, a treble no rider matched for 39 years; his grave was later lost, and it took a three-year search in the 1960s to find it.
Q 17By federal law, bourbon's grain mash must be at least 51 percent which grain?
Corn
Corn must make up at least 51 percent of the mash, and bourbon must age in new charred oak; a barrel can be used only once, so most are sold on to distillers in Scotland, Ireland, Mexico and the Caribbean.
Q 18The Bourbon Trail tourism programme was launched in 1999 by which body?
The state distillers' association
The state distillers' association trademarked the trail's name, so Buffalo Trace, whose owner left the association in 2010, runs its tours outside the official Bourbon Trail.
Q 19Which Oscar-winning actor was born in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1961?
George Clooney
George Clooney grew up in Augusta, Kentucky, and tried out for the Cincinnati Reds in 1977, but was cut in the first round; his Oscars came later, for Syriana and for producing Argo.
Q 20Which abolitionist guarded his Lexington newspaper office with two cannon in 1845?
Cassius M. Clay
Cassius M. Clay armed the office of his True American with two four-pounder cannon, yet a mob still seized his press; a century later Muhammad Ali was born with his name.
Camry sedans have rolled out of Georgetown since May 1988; it was Toyota's first stand-alone American plant, and in 2015 the company trusted it with the first Lexus built in the United States.
Q 24A taxidermied animal on show in a Lexington store is billed as the real-life inspiration for which film?
Cocaine Bear
Cocaine Bear retells the death of a black bear that ate cocaine dropped by a smuggler who had been a Lexington narcotics officer; whether the store's mounted bear is that one is disputed.
Q 25In 2025, the Lexington Legends baseball team belonged to which independent circuit?
The Atlantic League
The Atlantic League took the Legends in 2021, after Major League Baseball cut their affiliation; for one season, 2023, the team played as the Counter Clocks before taking its old name back.
Q 26Kentucky's football stadium, formerly Commonwealth Stadium, took which company's name in 2017?
Kroger
Commonwealth Stadium became Kroger Field in 2017 under a multi-year naming-rights deal with the Cincinnati-based grocer; it opened in 1973.
Q 27Which Lexington farm, founded by a baking-powder magnate, has bred more Kentucky Derby winners than any other?
Calumet Farm
Calumet Farm bred the Triple Crown winners Whirlaway and Citation among its record haul of Derby winners, yet its founder first raised trotting horses there, not Thoroughbreds.
Q 28Which 1973 Triple Crown winner, buried near Lexington at Claiborne Farm, won the Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths?
Secretariat
Secretariat's 31-length win in 2:24 is still the Belmont record; when he died in 1989 he was buried whole, a rare honour, since usually only a racehorse's head, heart and hooves are interred.
Q 29Five of Rupp's 1948 NCAA champion Wildcats won Olympic gold that summer in which city?
London
London staged the first Olympics in twelve years; Kentucky's starting five went as a unit, with Rupp as assistant coach, so the Fabulous Five were NCAA and Olympic champions within months.
Q 30Which Kentucky Wildcat was the consensus national player of the year in 2012?
Anthony Davis
Anthony Davis ended his first year of high school as a six-foot guard; a ten-inch growth spurt turned him into the shot-blocking big man who swept the 2012 awards and won Kentucky the title.