December 2

John Breckinridge was born on the 2nd in 1760 in Staunton, Virginia. At the time, Staunton was considered to be a frontier town, which could have held him apart from great opportunities. He was however a bit of a whiz kid and managed to attend the prestigious William and Mary College. Further evidence of Breckenridge’s remarkable abilities may be found in his election to the Virginia legislature when he was only 19 years old[i]. One explanation might be that he got a bunch of very good genes from his parents. In his later years, he would serve in the United States Senate, develop a prosperous law practice, and found Castleton Farm, one of the more notable farms in American thoroughbred racing history. His remarkable talents would follow down in his family line. Breckenridge’s great-great-grandson, Bunny Breckinridge[ii] (pictured) would achieve a similar level of success when, in 1958, he appeared as ‘The Ruler’ in Ed Wood’s masterpiece Plan 9 From Outer Space, arguably the worst movie ever made.

[i] Talk about stamina. Breckinridge, at the time of his first election to the Virginia House of Burgesses was under the legal age for the seat and he would have to be elected three times before he could legally assume the position.
[ii] In 1959, Bunny spent a year in the Atascadero State Hospital for the criminally insane for a bit of nastiness involving two underage boys and an excursion to Las Vegas.