by Myra Lewyn

Elmendorf Farm owner Elizabeth Whitcomb Lampton died on Saturday at a Lexington hospital from a severe head injury suffered in an accident at the historic Lexington farm on Friday. She was 74. 

Lampton was riding in a carriage when a carriage horse was spooked, causing the carriage to crash. Lampton was taken to the trauma intensive care unit at the University of Kentucky Medical Center.

Lampton and her husband, Dinwiddie Lampton Jr., have been longtime coaching and pleasure driving enthusiasts with a collection of carriages and carriage horses at Elmendorf on Paris Pike.

Elizabeth Lampton inherited her love of horses from her father, who was a longtime Standardbred horseman in New England. A former Miss Vermont who competed in the Miss Universe Pageant, she was an accomplished horsewoman. At age 72, she won a Ladies Phaeton Carriage class at the Indiana State Fair with a pair of Hackney horses she trained. She was a director of the American Hackney Horse Society and a trustee of the Carriage Museum of America in Lexington.

Elizabeth Lampton holds the distinction of being the first woman to sell a Mercedes-Benz while working for a dealership on Park Avenue in New York City. More recently, she took great pride in the restoration of Whipton Place Farm in Lexington.

Dinwiddie Lampton is the president of American Life and Accident Co., which purchased Elmendorf for $5-million in 1997, and owner of Hardscuffle Farm in Prospect, Kentucky, site of the prestigious Hardscuffle Steeplechase until 1996.
 
A memorial service will be held at Elmendorf by the famed columns on Tuesday at 2 p.m. EDT. A private burial will be at Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville on Wednesday.

Pearson Funeral Home is Louisville is handling arrangements. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Kentucky Horse Park Foundation for the Carriage Museum.

Myra Lewyn is daily news editor for Thoroughbred Times