When IndyCar drivers roar through the streets of Washington, DC, Aug. 22 and 23, racing within sight of the White House, they'll be adding another chapter to a story that stretches back to the founding of the republic.

Presidents have been going to the races since the nation began.

Long before modern motorsports, presidents spent weekends at horse tracks and bred champion thoroughbreds. They, like America, later also took to cheering on the country’s fastest automobiles.

The love of racing goes back to the nation's first president.

George Washington bred racehorses at Mount Vernon, his Virginia home, and was, according to the third president, Thomas Jefferson, "the best horseman of his age." Washington was a regular at racetracks throughout Virginia and Maryland and filled his diaries with notes from more than 150 foxhunts.

For Washington and other members of Virginia’s gentry, horsemanship was not only practical and recreational; it was also a way to display social position and the qualities expected of an 18th century gentleman.

How horse racing became a staple of presidential life

Horse racing quickly became part of the social and political life of the new federal city. The same year stonemasons finished erecting the walls of the President’s House in 1798, a mile-long track was laid out just west of it. In 1802, a more........

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