It may seem as if there has always been a Kentucky Derby, but of course, everything has to start somewhere.
For the Derby, that was 1875, and its debut is the focal point of a book being published this month by Eclipse Press, “The First Kentucky Derby: Thirteen Black Jockeys, One Shady Owner and the Little Red Horse That Wasn’t Supposed to Win.”
It’s a long title that requires an even longer explanation, but let me set the stage and explain why you might be interested.
The first Saturday in May (except for the Covid year in 2020 and 1945 due to World War II) is renowned not only as a celebration of fleet thoroughbred three-year-olds at Churchill Downs, but also as a festival of outrageous and elaborate hats, as well as mint juleps. It’s a great excuse for a Derby party, no matter how far away you live from Louisvlle, Ky.
The race is the country’s longest continuously running sporting event. It actually was held in 1945 (June) and 2020 (September), just not on the first Saturday in May during those years. And in case you’re not paying attention, the first Saturday is this weekend.
People who know nothing about racing and don’t think about the thoroughbreds for the rest of the year often make it a point to watch the venerated feature, even if they aren’t betting on it. Or maybe they’re just placing a casual wager with friends.
So author Mark Shrager had a good idea when he decided to delve into the first Derby and its first winner Aristides, for his book. Except the project didn’t turn out the way he originally envisioned it.
As he did his research, he was intrigued to discover that 13 of the 15 jockeys in the first Derby were Black. In the 1870s, some of the Black jockeys were born into slavery. They had, according to Shrager, “dominated the sport so thoroughly and so long” that it wasn’t a surprise they were the majority in that first Derby. But today, he noted, it is rare to see a Black jockey. And he wondered why, deciding to broaden his focus in the volume he was researching.
The short answer about the disappearance of Black jockeys involves a number of situations, among them white jockeys’ resentment about the Black jockeys’ success, as well as a changing attitude toward race riding as an opportunity for whites (rather than a profession being unfit for white men), the prejudice of racehorse owners, who were mostly white, and the Jim Crow laws that limited the right of African-Americans post-Civil War.
Even though Black jockeys and trainers were commonplace on the scene in the 19th Century, there is little recorded in the way of their thoughts and observations about the races they won. The media in those days tended to focus strictly on white practitioners of the sport. So the author couldn’t get any insight on their views about Aristides, ridden by Black jockey Oliver Lewis and conditioned by Ansel Williamson, also Black. Their thoughts would have been illuminating, considering the outcome of the race.
Asteroid, a son of the great Lexington, with jockey Edward Brown (also known as Brown Dick, who started life as a slave) and trainer Ansel Williamson.
Aristides, you see, was supposed to play second-fiddle to his stablemate, Chesapeake. But when the latter failed to fire, Lewis made the decision to ignore the instructions he had been given before the post parade and go for it, putting the diminutive Aristides in the history books.
Churchill Downs and its distinctive twin spires.
No Black jockeys rode in the Derby between 1921 and 2000. The last Black man to win the Derby was Jimmy Winkfield in 1902. The last Black man to ride in the Derby was Kendrick Carmouche in 2021. He also has the distinction of winning the Jimmy Winkfield Stakes at Aqueduct in 2018, but other Black jockeys are a rarity in the U.S. sport today.
Winkfield spent time riding in Russia and training in Europe, where he was not the victim of prejudice and racial slurs as he was in the U.S. But his place in history was recognized in 2004, when he was posthumously inducted in the National Racing Museum and Hall of Fame, recognized for his more than 2,500 victories over the course of his career.
Shrager’s book offers much more history and a look at a wide cast of fascinating characters, beyond covering the rise and fall of Black jockeys as a staple of the U.S. racing scene.
He delves into the English origins of the Derby name, and goes into detail about the life of Aristides’ owner, H. Price McGrath. A character if there ever was one, this entrepreneur and gambler (who spent a year in prison for running crooked card games) was also a club owner who made plenty of money in his pursuits. He bought a farm in Lexington, Ky., not far from where the Kentucky Horse Park is located today.
Included in the book are many of the Black players who made racing what it was after the Derby was born. Sadly, such names as jockey Isaac Murphy, the rider/trainer team of William Walker and Ed Brown likely will be unfamiliar to most readers, though they no longer remain strangers after a perusal of this book.
You’ll also learn about the controversial and hot-tempered Col. Meriwether Lewis Clark, the creator of the Kentucky Derby, which began as a mile-and-a-half race. That is now the length of the Belmont, the third leg of the Triple Crown, while the Derby is a mile and a quarter and the Preakness, the middle leg of the Triple Crown, is a mile and three-sixteenths. (Both races are older than the Derby, but unlike the Derby, they did not run every year of their history.)
This book is worth a read, if you like horse racing and history. And you’ll find there’s a lot more to the Derby than just picking the right horse.
