Making a Difference

Honoring Black Horsemen

their farms,” said Ryder. “Tey moved from farms to the community where the racetrack was and had opportunity.

“Te megastar athletes [of the time] were the Black jockeys,” she continued. “Tere were no baseball teams; there were no football teams; there were no basketball teams. Racing was popular. And the Isaac Murphys and Jimmy Winkfelds and ‘Soup’ Perkinses — these were the go-to guys for riding the best horses in the world. And they were right here in Lexington, living within a few blocks of each other.”

In more recent years, and through the eforts of several local grassroots organizations such as Phoenix Rising Lexington, African Cemetery No. 2, and the Ed Brown Society, people have become more aware of this particular history. “We have the Isaac Murphy Memorial Art Garden that is right there on Tird Street, right next to where the old track used to be. It’s there where Isaac Murphy’s home actually was,” said Ryder. “We are in the midst of signifcant history here in Lexington, and we thought that history needed to be told. Not just the fabulous jockeys everybody knows about, but the grooms, the farriers, the trainers and other attendant industries that supported racing and breeding.”

Te exhibit also drives home the untenable circumstances African Americans faced, frst as enslaved horsemen and later under Jim Crow laws, but how their love of horses and racing continued to be passed down in families through generations.

In the years leading to the Civil War and until the abolition of slavery in 1865, horse racing was the country’s sport of choice, and many of the sport’s best horsemen were enslaved. Te exhibit points out that living with the atrocities of slavery, Black grooms, farriers, stable managers, trainers, and jockeys tasked with the training, exercising, and the 24/7 care of racehorses passed down their hardearned knowledge to the successive generation, cultivating a continuum of outstanding horsemanship.

“Afer heightening segregation laws and systemic discrimination pushed the most visible members of this sport out of the limelight and out of lucrative positions, many African Americans continued to work in the industry, particularly in the Bluegrass,” said Ferraro. “Tey were increasingly restricted to jobs that were less visible to the public such as grooms or exercise riders, and if they conditioned horses, they ofen weren’t trainers of record.”

Te exhibit addresses some of the social, political, and economic forces at play over time.