On Sunday, May 17, 1875, a three-year-old chestnut colt named Aristides crossed the finish line at the newly opened Louisville Jockey Club race track to become the first-ever winner of the Kentucky Derby, which had launched that year.
The victory handed Aristedes’ owner H. Price McGrath the top prize of $2,850 (roughly $80,000 in today’s money).
Riding Aristides was Oliver Lewis, a 19-year-old jockey from Fayette County in Kentucky.
Lewis had been instructed to force the pace so that McGrath’s other horse and the favorite to win, Chesapeake, could take the tape.
But Lewis powered to victory instead, triumphing by two lengths.
Like so many other jockeys of the era, Lewis was an African-American whose family had been born into slavery – just like Aristedes’ trainer, Ansel Williamson, another former slave.
Indeed, barely a decade after the end of the Civil War and the emancipation of African Americans from slavery, a full 13 of the 15 runners in the inaugural Kentucky Derby were ridden by African-American horsemen.
This Sunday, when the 149th running of the race billed as The Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports takes place at Churchill Downs, there will be no black jockeys competing.
While there are a handful of African-American jockeys currently working in the United States, there aren’t many, apart from the likes of Kendrick Carmouche and Deshawn Parker, who are operating at the very highest level.
The reason, says Calvin Davis, president of Project to Preserve African American Turf History (PPAATH), is because black people just don’t see themselves in the sport anymore – and it is easy to understand why. “We don’t see many African American Jockeys today because horse racing has such an ugly past,” he tells The Post. “It’s that Jim Crow mindset, the [feeling that horse-racing] is a white man’s playground that has pushed people of color away.”
Black participation in early horse racing has its roots in the nation’s antebellum plantation system, where young black slaves were often tasked with tending to horse herds on vast estates.
During the decades following President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, African-American horsemen and jockeys, freed from slavery, found a logical source of employment in the racing industry.
And from that debut Kentucky Derby onward, they went on to dominate thoroughbred racing. It’s a glorious legacy, but one that even the most obsessive racing fans typically know little about.
“The end of the Civil War, and the Reconstruction period that followed, brought hope for greater equality for African Americans,” explains Chris Goodlett, senior director of Curatorial and Educational Affairs at the Kentucky Derby Museum. “And, as such, African-American jockeys and trainers helped to lay the foundations for the Kentucky Derby.”
Black jockeys won 15 of the first 28 Kentucky Derbies and their success in the late 19th and early 20th century made riders like Isaac Murphy, also born into slavery and the first ever three-time winner of the race, some of the biggest sports stars of the era.
Alonzo Clayton and James “Soup” Perkins, for instance, both won the Kentucky Derby at the age of just 15 while Jimmy Winkfield, the last African-American jockey to win the race, won back-to-back Derbies in 1901 and 1902.
Their dominance was such that white jockeys found themselves, at times, out of favor compared to their black counterparts and, ironically, complained they were being discriminated against in the industry.
When they did race together, white riders would routinely target the Black jockeys, using their riding crops to whip their rivals or force their horses into the rails.
In 1900, Winkfield, for example, was badly bruised and his mount suffered cracked ribs in an incident at Harlem Race Track, near Chicago, Ill., the result of intimidatory tactics by white riders.
The era of black jockey dominance was short-lived.
The Supreme Court’s ruling in the landmark Plessy v. Ferguson case of 1896 upheld then-nascent Jim Crow laws on segregation in many southern states, all but signaling the end for African-American jockeys.
With African-American jockeys marginalized, an alternative narrative emerged as to why Black jockeys were not getting a fair crack on the race track.
In 1905, for example, The Washington Post ran a column explaining why African-American jockeys had been usurped, titled: “Negro Riders on the Wane: White Jockeys Superior Intelligence Supersedes.”
The truth was that the money earned by African-American jockeys – Isaac Murphy was once the highest-paid sports star in America – had made the sport a more attractive place to forge a career and white jockeys were happy to draw the color line and reclaim what they, erroneously, believed was their domain.
Their livelihoods were decimated, and African-American jockeys sought alternative work.
Some took jobs in stables, some dropped out of the sport and some simply abandoned the US altogether. “There are several instances of African-American athletes taking their talents to Europe and Jimmy Winkfield was among them,” adds Chris Goodlett. (Winkfield, for instance, wound up racing in Russia and ultimately settled in France).
“In fact, this trend went beyond racing, as African-American artists and entertainers went abroad as well because race was a lesser issue in many European countries.”
The pace of change since has been glacial.
When Kendrick Carmouche rode Bourbonic in the 2021 Kentucky Derby, he became the first African-American jockey since Kevin Krigger in 2013 to take part in the race. “As a black rider getting to the Kentucky Derby, I hope it inspires a lot of people because my road wasn’t easy to get there and I never quit,” Carmouche told the press at that time.
The only other black jockeys to ride in the race in recent years are Patrick Husbands in 2006 and Marlon St. Julien in 2000, the latter being the first African-American jockey in 79 years to compete in the Kentucky Derby.
According to Greg Harbut, president of Harbut Livestock in Lexington, Ky,., and whose horse, Necker Island, ran in the Kentucky Derby in 2020, cultivating a more diverse racing industry is vital to the long-term prosperity of thoroughbred racing – and it all begins with the youth.
“Representation in the sport is vital,” Harbut told The Post. “Young people can see faces like theirs in football or basketball, even tennis and golf, but that’s not really the case in our sport.
“So when it comes to the young jockeys, I think it’s imperative that they’re able to see individuals that look like them on TV so they have something real to aspire to.”
Calvin Davis agrees. “The NBA and NFL, for instance, wouldn’t have a competition without Africa Americans,” he said to the Post. “That’s because they embraced this demographic. Now, they both have truly global appeal and continue to grow.”
With a family history steeped in thoroughbred racing, dating back to his great grandfather Tom Harbut – who was groom to arguably the greatest horse of all time, Man o’ War – Greg Harbut is also the man behind Living The Dream.
The horse co-ownership program offers people from minority communities a more affordable and accessible way into owning a share in a racehorse (which typically begins in the low six-figures).
Despite his heritage in the sport, Harbut’s path to success wasn’t exactly easy, not least because of his color. “When I started out, there weren’t any African-American owners involved in this industry so I had to be creative. It’s why I went to Japan to find horses – they were the ones who gave me a chance.”
Harbut’s experience helped inspire him, along with his business partner Ray Daniels, to establish the non-profit Ed Brown Society in 2021.
Named after the first African-American professional jockey, trainer, and then owner – Brown won the Belmont Stakes in 1870 – the society offers scholarships to young people of color, helping them to gain valuable experience and internships in all aspects of horse racing and set them up on careers throughout the thoroughbred industry.
The Kentucky Derby Museum is also working to keep the story of African-American jockeys front and center with its Black Heritage in Racing program.
When Oliver Lewis died in 1924, aged 68, he was buried in Lexington’s cemetery for the Colored Peoples Union Benevolent Society No. 2 Today, it is known as African Cemetery No. 2.
It’s also the final resting place of James “Soup” Perkins.
Like many of the 5,000 African-Americans buried there, a large number of whom were involved in the racing industry, there is little or no mention of Lewis’s historic achievements in the sport.
It’s also why Isaac Murphy, one of the greatest jockeys in the history of the sport, lay in an unmarked grave there for 60 years before he was discovered and his remains moved to Kentucky Horse Park, where the horse, Man o’ War is also buried.
For the PPAATH’s Calvin Davis, though, such posthumous recognition is not nearly enough. “Why are there no films about Oliver Lewis? Or Jimmy Winkfield? Why should Isaac Murphy, one of the greats, be left in an unmarked grave for so long?” he asks.
“There is no still no real investment in reconnecting people of color to these incredible stories and to the industry itself,” he adds.