Colonel E. R. Bradley

Saratoga Race Track

Circa 1940

May 7, 1934

Colonel E. R. Bradley

(1859-1946)

"I'd gamble on anything."

The only four-time winner of the Kentucky Derby.

Bradley won the Kentucky Derby with Behave Yourself (1921), Bubbling Over (1926), Burgoo King (1932) and Brokers Tip (1933).  Brokers Tip with jockey Don Meade was the only horse in history whose sole win was in the Kentucky Derby.  Both Don Meade and Herb Fisher were suspended for 30 days for their rough riding and Fisher received an additional five days for starting a fistfight with Meade in the jockey's room afterward. 

Don Meade

Circa 1942

The "Fighting Finish"

A famous photograph captured the jockeys in a physical altercation as their horses strained toward the finish line.  In an era before photo finish cameras, the stewards declared Brokers Tip the winner, a decision that remained controversial for years.

 

Born in Johntown, Pennsylvania of Irish descent Edward Riley Bradley was an American steel mill laborer, gold miner, businessman and philanthropist.  As well as a race track proprietor, he was the preeminent owner and breeder of thoroughbred racehorses in the United States during the first three decades of the 20th century.  

By 1891, Bradley had accumulated considerble wealth.  He moved to St. Augustine where he worked in real estate.  In 1898, he moved to Palm Beach to build the Beach Club.  The Beach Club was a black-tie gambling casino that operated from 1898 to 1945 where Bradley Park is today at the northwest corner of Royal Poinciana Way and Bradley Place. The club was indeed a place where spectacularly rich and elegantly-looking people had a ball whether they won or lost because it was just money and there was plenty of that to go around in Palm Beach. 

And being flush enough to afford to lose a considerable bet was a key membership qualification of the club in the eyes of owner Edward R. Bradley.  All social and other activities inside the club went unrecorded as no known photographs of the interior exist.  The Beach Club, which included a restaurant was founded as a private dinner club "organized for social purposes" including "games or amusements the management and its members may from time to time agree upon."  Most years, it was open January through April.  

E. R. Bradley

Circa 1945

The club's rambling clapboard exterior was painted white with green trim and featured green-and-white awnings which were the colors of Bradley's racing silks at his Kentucky stable, home to four Kentucky Derby winners.  The club's dining room offered among the best food in the country with the handsomely paid chef by the name of Gene Braccho serving up Green Turtle Soup  and Florida lobster.  

High rollers came from down the street at Standard Oil baron, railroad magnate and Palm Beach developer, Henry Flagler's two 1890s-built resort hotels which in their early years stood like grand fortresses on a mostly undeveloped island.  Bradley, who eventually bought this brother John's interests in the Beach Club ran his place as conservatively as his dark suits with stiff and high white collars.  Alcohol consumption was monitored though not always successfully, formal attire was required after 7 p.m. and smoking was forbidden in the "ballroom" where the gambling floor was located at the Beach Club. 

Although gambling was illegal in Florida the entire time the Beach Club was open, law enforcement officials never closed the business.  There were a few raids, but Bradley, who employed a security force recruited from the Tennessee mountains was always tipped off in advance.

Bradley was well-liked and respected and gave significant sums to charity as well as for much of the construction of Good Samaritan Hospital, St. Mary's Hospital and  St. Edward Catholic Church in Palm Beach. Bradley also owned The Palm Beach Post, Post-Times and the Palm Beach Daily News. 

 Bradley shared a large stone winter home with his wife, Agnes just north of the club.  Old-time Palm Beachers have recalled "Auntie" Agnes' kindness to them as kids. 

She was a wonderful lady.  She'd invite us up to the house to have Baked Alaska and macaroons from Majewski's Bakery on Clematis Street.

Thomas Tipton "Tip" Reese 

Nearby at the Beach Club, Bradley always screened potential members to try to ensure their finances could sustain bets that bombed.  When people won, he seemed genuinely pleased, according to longtime E. R. Bradley private secretary, Tom Bohne. Bets and losses could be significant according to various sources.  One evening's gambling at the roulette wheel logged a loss of $200,000 for automotive magnate John Studebaker.  

Actress, Billie Burke who played Glinda the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz cried herself to sleep over "losing my husband to a roulette wheel" at the Beach Club. Composer, Irving Berlin was known to frequent the Beach Club according to the late Herbert Bayard Swope, Jr. and longtime resident of Palm Beach.  

In 1945, Bradley closed the Beach Club prompting Joseph P. Kennedy to proclaim Palm Beach had "lost its zipperoo."

Prior to Bradley's death in 1946, he willed the club property to the town with the provision it be torn down and become a park which became known as Bradley Park. 

The Bradley Casino of Palm Beach, Florida was famed throughout America as the Monte Carlo of the western hemisphere.  Here the elite of the nation's elite amused themselves with the games or perhaps, just lounged about the handsome parlors and dining rooms which seated 212 patrons.

And if you're wondering .. Edward Riley Bradley was referred to as Colonel E. R. Bradley because he was given an honorary title as a Kentucky Colonel earned through his achievements in horse racing.  He was the classic "Kentucky Colonel" and soon became a Kentucky legend.