The Color of Racing

My eyes are closed as I try to imagine what this day might have looked like when it all began. The ground rumbles, and I can feel the vibrations through my whole body as the crowd hums its excitement and as the thoroughbreds prepare to run. I try to picture the crowd’s face as it was back then; it probably would have been more colorful. There would have been more color by the stables and in the back rooms as well.

It is hard to imagine now. It was easier when I was younger, and there had not been years upon years of

seeing seas of porcelain-colored people organize, ride, and win horse races. But, if I squeeze my eyes a little tighter and let the boy in me take the reins, the face of the crowd melts into a mosaic. I can see their colorful

faces cheering and hear their voices screaming with excitement at the first Kentucky Derby back in 1875. 

Following their gazes to the track, I turn to see Oliver Lewis pulling ahead with a band of twelve black brothers

riding behind him. I watch him glance over his shoulder. He knows that he and Aristides are not supposed to win this race, but he is waved and cheered on by Aristides’ owner. I smile, my eyes still closed and the sun warming my face, as he crosses the finish line. I sigh with a mixture of longing and satisfaction… So much has changed since then.

I know the history like it is my own life story - it is my story. These are just the chapters before I was born. My mind fast-forwards after Lewis’ victory. The sun sets, and it rises again on a Kentucky Derby sixteen years later. Isaac Burns Murphy rubs Kingman’s neck as the rider becomes the first person to win two consecutive Kentucky Derbies, and the horse becomes the first victor to have a black owner. I imagine Murphy coming down from Kingman to kiss his wife, Lucy, and I can see

Dudley Allen making his way to the winner's circle with pride in his eyes. He is shaking everyone's hands, and he can’t stop smiling. I imagine he, Murphy, and Preston Stone taking a picture with Kingman before my mental VHS tape rolls four more years forward to 1895.

This time it is James “Soup” Perkins, the spunky fifteen-year-old kid who loved soup so much it became his name.

I can hear the crowd exclaiming about how young he looks, and when they ask him his age in the winner's circle, I watch him try to look taller. "Going on sixteen," he says, puffing out his chest. He and Alonzo Clayton are still

the youngest people to have ever won the Kentucky Derby.

After Perkins, my moving mental picture shows Willie Simms wining what would become the American Triple

Crown, and then I fast-forward to 1901 and 1902 to watch Jimmy Winkfield win the Kentucky Derby twice in a row... Then my smile begins to sag.

The tape rolls on, and I watch the color in the crowd’s face begin to fade to white. I see white jockeys ride my brothers over the rails, and I see judges look the other way. Bruises are harder to see on dark skin, but I can see them on this tape. I watch African American jockeys beg for rides from the horse owners they used to race

for, and I watch those horse owners sadly shake their heads. I do not blame them for looking out for their horses; I blame the judges who stand by and watch in silence as racial violence busts into the Kentucky Derby without apology.

Like the faces of lawn jockey statues that buyers would paint white, the color of horse racing is painted over. As I watch the sport become more popular and more public, I see the color choked out of it. Our people are forced out of this race to run a different one. A longer, bloodier one. The sun’s warmth has left my face, and Jim Crow’s shadow covers the track as Henry King becomes the last African American to ride in the Kentucky Derby in 1921.

Until today.

I open my eyes, and things do not look very different from my mental picture of 1921. Our people have run through the military, the schools, the public transportation system, and restaurants; those have all been de-segregated in the past 79 years, but - somehow - our race is not over yet. The sport I love is still dominated by the majority. When Jimmy Winkfield was invited to the Kentucky Derby in 1960, sixty years after his historic victories, I wonder if he was pained by our people’s disappearance from the story of horse racing. I know it pains me, and I only have imagined a mental tape of our history, but he had actually seen the sport full of people like us. He had lived that reality; he had been at home with the races, and then he was invited back to be a guest in his own home.

I tuck all these thoughts away as I head to the starting line and mount Curule. The adrenaline courses through my veins as we enter the gate, and I can feel the horse's excitement, too. I smile. As I wait for the race to start, I forget everything else for a moment and simply revel in how much I love this sport. I lean forward, ready to live my part of the story and restless to do what I was born to do. The starting gate flies open. Curule and I charge forward into the story.

Who knows, maybe the next young black jockey who rides the Kentucky Derby, will rewind his story back to this moment and watch me.

This is a fictional story inspired by Marlon St. Julien and the history of horse racing in America. The thoughts, feelings, and ideas expressed here are my own extrapolation on historical events. I am extremely grateful for St. Julien's contribution to African American history and the history of horse racing. This story, however, is fictional and may or may not represent his thoughts, ideas, or feelings.