Lexington Trivia
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149 free Lexington trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 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 149 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Frontiersmen camping in Kentucky in June 1775 named their site after hearing news of what?
The opening battle in Massachusetts
The camp was named Lexington after the Battle of Lexington, the opening clash of the Revolutionary War in Massachusetts; Kentucky became a state 17 years later, in 1792.
Q 02Lexington, Kentucky's city government has been merged with which county since 1974?
Fayette
Lexington merged with Fayette County in 1974 to form the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government, Kentucky's first consolidated city-county, run by a mayor and a nonpartisan council.
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 has held live meets in which two months since 1936?
April and October
Keeneland has run its two short meets in April and October since opening in October 1936; its period look is why most racing scenes in the 2003 film Seabiscuit were shot there.
Q 05Keeneland was the last track in North America to do what, holding out until 1997?
Broadcast race calls over a public-address system
Keeneland ran without a track announcer until 1997, when it finally began broadcasting race calls over a public-address system; it is also home to the world's largest Thoroughbred auction house.
Q 06Which Triple Crown winner took the Breeders' Cup Classic when Keeneland hosted the event in 2015?
American Pharoah
American Pharoah, the 2015 Triple Crown winner, closed his career by winning the Breeders' Cup Classic at Keeneland on October 31, 2015, completing racing's first Grand Slam.
Q 07The Kentucky Horse Park, opened in 1978, has a famous statue near its entrance of which horse?
Man o' War
Man o' War, winner of 20 of his 21 races, is buried beneath his bronze statue near the entrance of the Kentucky Horse Park, which opened in 1978.
Q 08In 2010 Lexington became the first city outside Europe to host which event?
The World Equestrian Games
The 2010 FEI World Equestrian Games at the Kentucky Horse Park were the first ever held outside Europe; the park also stages the Kentucky Three-Day Event each spring.
Q 09How many NCAA championships had the University of Kentucky men's basketball team won by 2025?
Eight
It also has the most all-time wins and best winning percentage in the sport, and was the first programme to reach 2,000 victories.
Q 10Rupp Arena, home of the Wildcats, is named after a coach known by what nickname?
The Baron of the Bluegrass
Adolph Rupp, the Baron of the Bluegrass, coached Kentucky from 1930 to 1972 and won four national titles, prowling the sideline in his trademark brown suit.
Q 11By 2025, Kentucky's men's basketball national titles had been won by how many different coaches?
Five
Five coaches have won Kentucky's titles: Adolph Rupp (four), Joe B. Hall (1978), Rick Pitino (1996), Tubby Smith (1998) and John Calipari (2012).
Q 12Which Lexington college, chartered in 1780, is Kentucky's oldest and the first west of the Alleghenies?
Transylvania
Transylvania University, chartered in 1780, is Kentucky's oldest college and the first west of the Allegheny Mountains; its pioneering medical department trained doctors from 1799 to 1859.
Q 13The Great Compromiser, whose Ashland estate is a Lexington landmark, was which statesman?
Henry Clay
Q 21A factory in Lexington produces more of what than any other plant in the world?
Peanut butter
Peanut butter: the Jif plant on Winchester Road is the world's largest peanut-butter factory, a Procter & Gamble plant until the J.M. Smucker Company bought the brand in 2002.
Q 22Lexmark, the printer company headquartered in Lexington, was spun off in 1991 from which corporation?
IBM
Lexmark was spun off from IBM in March 1991, when IBM sold its Lexington typewriter, keyboard and printer business to the investment firm Clayton & Dubilier.
Q 23The Toyota plant in the Lexington metro area, opened in Georgetown, chiefly builds which model?
Camry
Toyota's Georgetown plant, its first wholly owned US assembly plant, has built the Camry since production began in May 1988; it also makes its own four-cylinder and V6 engines.
Henry Clay was Speaker of the House, Secretary of State, a Treaty of Ghent negotiator and a founder of the Whig Party.
Q 14Which First Lady was born in Lexington in 1818, the daughter of a wealthy banker?
Mary Todd Lincoln
Mary Todd Lincoln was born in Lexington on December 13, 1818, to banker Robert Smith Todd; her girlhood home on West Main Street is now a museum.
Q 15Lexington native Thomas Hunt Morgan won a 1933 Nobel Prize for work with which organism?
Fruit flies
His Fly Room at Columbia proved that genes are carried on chromosomes; he was a nephew of Confederate raider John Hunt Morgan.
Q 16Isaac Burns Murphy, the Lexington-raised jockey, achieved what distinction?
First inducted into the Hall of Fame
Isaac Murphy, who won the Kentucky Derby in 1884, 1890 and 1891, was the first jockey inducted into the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame when it opened in 1955.
Q 17By federal law, bourbon must be made from a grain mixture that is at least what percentage corn?
51 percent
Federal standards require bourbon's grain mash to be at least 51 percent corn and aged in new charred oak; Congress declared it a 'distinctive product of the United States' in 1964.
Q 18The Bourbon Trail tourism programme was launched in 1999 by which body?
The state distillers' association
The association registered the phrase as a trademark; several trail distilleries lie within an hour of Lexington.
Q 19Which Oscar-winning actor was born in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1961?
George Clooney
George Clooney was born in Lexington on May 6, 1961, the son of broadcaster Nick Clooney, and grew up in Augusta, Kentucky; he won an Oscar for Syriana and another as a producer of Argo.
Q 20Despite its name, Kentucky bluegrass, which gives Lexington's region its nickname, is native to where?
Europe and North Africa
Europe and North Africa, plus North Asia; the name comes from its seed heads, which look blue when the plant grows to its natural two or three feet.
Q 24A stuffed bear displayed in a Lexington mall inspired which 2023 film?
Cocaine Bear
Cocaine Bear was inspired by a black bear that died in 1985 after eating cocaine dropped from a smuggler's plane; the taxidermied bear is displayed at the Kentucky for Kentucky Fun Mall.
Q 25In 2025, the Lexington Legends baseball team belonged to which independent circuit?
The Atlantic League
The Legends joined the independent Atlantic League, an MLB Partner League, in 2021 after losing affiliated status in the minor-league contraction; they played as the Counter Clocks in 2023 and 2024.
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 27What was the horse that handed Man o' War his only defeat called, a name now a sports cliché?
Upset
Upset beat Man o' War in the 1919 Sanford Memorial Stakes at Saratoga, the champion's only loss; the result helped earn the track its nickname, the Graveyard of Champions.
Q 28The 1973 Triple Crown winner, buried near Lexington, won the Belmont by how many lengths?
31
Secretariat won the 1973 Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths in 2:24, a dirt record for a mile and a half; he stood at Claiborne Farm near Paris, Kentucky, and is buried there.
Q 29What did Rupp's 1948 NCAA champion Wildcats go on to do that summer?
Win Olympic gold representing the US
The London Olympics squad was built around Rupp's Fabulous Five.
Q 30Which Kentucky Wildcat was the consensus national player of the year in 2012?
Anthony Davis
Anthony Davis swept the 2012 national player-of-the-year awards as a freshman while leading Kentucky to the national title; Oscar Tshiebwe repeated the consensus honour in 2022.