Fulshear Town Square

On July 16, 1824, land grant of Mexico to Churchill Fulshear, one of the “Old 300” settlers of Stephen F. Austin, father 

of Texas. Churchill Fulshear, Jr., veteran of Texas War for Independence, built 4-story brick mansion in 1850s, bred and raced horses at Churchill Downs (at Pittsville, 2 mi. N). His pupil, John Huggins, won world fame by training first American horse to win the English Derby. Town platted here 1890 by San Antonio & Aransas Pass Railroad, soon was trade center, with many facilities. 

On June 5th, 1901, William C. Whitney’s Volodyovski (the horse) won the Epsom Derby in Great Britain, making him the second American owner (after Pierre Lorillard in 1881) to have won the race. 

Whitney leased the English-bred horse for the express purpose of winning at Epsom. Whitney’s trainer, John Huggins of Fulshear, Texas was the first American to train an Epsom Derby winner.

In 1901 Lester Reiff became the first American jockey to win the Epsom Derby, guiding 5-2 favorite Volodyovski to victory.  It wasn’t only American jockeys who were making their presence felt; it was American trainers too. They brought about a revolution in training methods, almost as radical as the jockeys had influenced riding styles with their low, crouched seats. American trainers believed in giving  their horses short, sharp work, rather than over long distances. Their stables were airier with open doors and windows, and their feeding regimens were far more scientific.

His win of the Epsom Derby was the first ever by an American trainer and is commemorated in a 

Historical Marker in front of Huggins hometown City Hall in Fulshear, Texas.

John Huggins died in 1917 at his home in Fulshear at the age of 69. He is interred in the Fulshear 

Cemetery. In 1979, the new Huggins Elementary School at No. 1 Huggins Dr. in Fulshear, Texas.