Among them is Williamson and Lexington jockey Jimmy Winkfield, the last African American jockey to win the Kentucky Derby (19).īut the programme goes well beyond field trips. To ensure the academy's predominantly Black participants are connected to their heritage, they tour Lexington's International Museum of the Horse, home to the Black Horsemen of the Kentucky Turf exhibit that highlights the nearly forgotten achievements of Black horseracing trailblazers. "When we went out back to play football or baseball, we didn't know we were playing on hallowed ground," Mack said.
Renowned Black equestrians made history on that track, and many lived in the surrounding neighbourhood. He didn't know it at the time, but that circle was the defunct Kentucky Association Race Track, Lexington's premier racing venue from 1828 to 1933. Yet, with the rise of Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation in the post-Reconstruction South, Black jockeys were forced off horses and into barns as caretakers and manual labourers. Son of a former enslaved person, Murphy became a three-time Kentucky Derby winner between 18 and was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame.
The exhibit also highlights the remarkable story of Isaac Burns Murphy. Lewis was far from alone: 12 of the 15 jockeys at the first Kentucky Derby were Black, and in the race's first 28 runnings, African American jockeys won 15 times. Visitors learn that Oliver Lewis, the winning jockey of the inaugural Kentucky Derby in 1875, was Black, and his horse's trainer, Ansel Williamson, was a Black man born into slavery. "The Kentucky Derby started with the direct contributions of African American horsemen," Greg said.Īt the Kentucky Derby Museum in Louisville, a tour (which also covers the adjacent Churchill Downs racetrack) reveals the proud legacy of Kentucky's Black equestrians. In fact, in the latter half of the 19th Century, when horse racing was one of the most popular sports in America, African Americans were considered some of the best horsemen in the world, a fact that has long since been forgotten or erased.
Today, there are few African Americans involved in the US' horseracing industry, but they once dominated the sport, working as jockeys, trainers, breeders and grooms.
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