In Touch With A Black Jockey

Written By Betty Miller Buttram
FWIS Contributing Writer

We need to stay aware and remain alert to our black history contributions to America. In this political environment of misinformation, we need to rise above all the noise about the banning of books. In this present-day climate of trying to erase and deny African American books and our history, there is a surfacing of more of our stories coming out to the public.

Katherine Mooney, a professor of history at Florida State University is the author of the book Isaac Murphy: The Rise and Fall of the Black Jockey. Isaac Murphy was the first black jockey to win the Kentucky Derby three times, 1884, 1890 and 1891.

Murphy was born into slavery in 1861 in Kentucky. His father escaped slavery and joined the Union Army and died during the Civil War. He was a small child when his mother placed him under the tutelage of Eli Jordan who was a highly regarded Black horse trainer. Jordan had the skills and the knowledge in the training of young Murphy. Before the Civil War, enslaved black men were a familiar presence in Southern horse racing circles. The rich plantation owners relied on enslaved Black men to perform the physical labor and assume the bodily risks of kicks, bites or a boot stuck in a stirrup killing or maiming a racing man for life. Another danger added to the jockeys was their riding weight which was a burden placed on them from the days of the enslavers. As Murphy grew into manhood during the Reconstruction Period of the South, he was forced to maintain his weight beneath the riding limits of 105 to 110 pounds. His diet consisted largely of fruit. On race days he walked and ran for miles wearing heavy sweaters and rejecting water.

Murphy’s first professional race was at the age of 14. In 1879 at the age of 18, he rode his dark brown colt that had been trained by Jordan to a second-place finish in the Kentucky Debry. Later, he won the Clark States at Churchill Downs. He won a race at Travers Stakes in Saratoga Springs, New York. From that time forward, Murphy was on his way to being a star jockey. He won his first Kentucky Derby in 1884. He shattered records and earned millions during his years as a jockey. In 1889, Murphy earned the equivalent of more than $5 million a year. He and his wife, Lucy, who accompanied him on his travels, bought a spacious brick home near the track in Lexington. He hired a valet and hosted lavish parties for other African American strivers. He was celebrated by everyone black and white.

Reconstruction was ending, and the rise of Jim Crow was beginning. The superiority of the Old South began to struggle and wondered about their reverence for Murphy and other black jockeys as athletes and then there were contract disputes.

Murphy won for the second time the Kentucky Derby in May 1890. At another race that same year, Murphy fell off the horse he was riding after crossing the finish line in last place. He was rumored to have been drunk. Murphy was suspended from racing. He was devastated. He felt like it was a judgment from his peers and had damaged his respectability. He went on to win the Kentucky Derby for the third time in 1891. Murphy died of heart failure at the age of 35 in 1896. There were some who figured his death was the result of his rapid weight loss battles. Over the next decade, Black jockeys slowly disappeared from the racing tracks. In 1902, racetracks around the country prohibited black jockeys from competition.

In 1955, Isaac Murphy was inducted into the National Racing Museum and Hall of Fame in Saratoga.

This is not a book review. This is a black history story that I wanted to pass on to you.