Unlikely Rider is Getting His Dues

The Tom Bass Arena, "a $1.3 million equine warm-up facility at the [American Royal] complex in Kansas City's West Bottoms," is nearly complete. It is named after African American horseman Tom Bass who was a prominent American Royal figure during its early years. Bass was born in 1859, son of a wealthy Boone County, Mo., landowner and one of his slave girls. He was freed at the end of the Civil War. During his career he "performed before presidents and trained horses for celebrities such as Missouri Gov. C. H. Hardin and, later, Buffalo Bill Cody." In 1892 he put on Kansas City's first horse show, a benefit for the Fire Department. "Bass' last appearance at the American Royal was in 1928. He died in 1934."