Keeneland Sharing The History Of Horseracing’s Black Pioneers

Horseracing returns to Keeneland on April 7, 2023, when the Spring Meet begins with two days featuring eight stakes (races) worth a combined $4.05 million. Keenland’s Spring Meet (a collection of races; the season) runs through Friday, April 28, with racing conducted Wednesdays through Sundays, excluding Easter Sunday, April 9. Post time (start time) for the first race is 1 p.m. daily, except April 8 when the first race is at 12:30 p.m.

Enjoying “the sport of kings” at the historic track in Lexington, KY–the Horse Capital of the World–doesn’t require a royal pocketbook; general admission tickets start at $7 with tours of morning workouts beginning at $15.

Since opening in 1936, Keeneland has been unique in the Thoroughbred industry. Only there are world-class racing and industry-leading sales united under one entity. Keeneland is the world’s largest and most prominent Thoroughbred auction house and hosts world-class racing twice annually during its boutique Spring and Fall meetings.

A National Historic Landmark, Keeneland features beautifully landscaped grounds open to the public every day amongst the idyllic rolling bluegrass. Visitors in the know are sure to enjoy breakfast or lunch at the Track Kitchen (Monday-Friday 6AM-2PM; Saturday and Sunday 6AM-11AM) where they may find themselves enjoying the homestyle food alongside a jockey, trainer or owner.

Also not to be missed is the Keeneland Library, a public research and reference library, now one of the world’s largest repositories of information related to the Thoroughbred. Established in 1939, the library houses nearly 30,000 books, approximately 1 million photographic negatives and thousands of newspaper and magazine articles about all aspects of the equine industry.

Racing’s Black Pioneers

Through August 31, 2023, free and open to the public at Keeneland Library, a special exhibition, “The Heart of the Turf: Racing’s Black Pioneers,” illuminates and honors how the equine industry is rooted in the tenacity, skill and knowledge of the Black community. The presentation shares the lives and careers of African American horsemen and women through 150 years of the sport, from the era of slavery to present day.

“It was a big undertaking, almost 200 years of history, thousands upon thousands of people that could have been featured (and) we chose to highlight 80,” Roda Ferraro, Library Associate, Keeneland Library, told Forbes.com. “We also have a lot of tie in to local history because there’s a reason why Lexington, the Bluegrass (region), but Lexington more specifically (was an epicenter) for Black horsemen and women. There are a lot of reasons–historical, political and economic–we had the opportunity to delve into that too. For folks who live in Lexington’s East End, a lot of this information is new to them and this is where they were born and raised.”

Lexington’s East End was home to the Kentucky Association track from the late 1820s through 1933; many Black horsemen and their families also called it home. By the late 1800s, four future Racing Hall of Famers lived there: jockeys Isaac Burns Murphy and Jimmy Winkfield, trainer Ansel Williamson, and trainer/owner Edward Dudley Brown. Hundreds of others bought their homes, built their businesses, and raised their families in surrounding neighborhoods.

Featuring more than 100 rare photographs, never-before-displayed artifacts, video interviews and personal accounts from well-known names in racing lore such as Sylvia Bishop, the first Black woman licensed to train horses in the U.S., “The Heart of the Turf” presents a more comprehensive, coehsive telling of the impact African Americans had and continue having on the horse industry than ever before.

From racetrack superstars to behind-the-scenes caretakers, the exhibition showcases select stories of the countless African Americans–grooms, farriers, stable managers, trainers, owners, stewards and jockeys–who forged their way in Kentucky and beyond from the era of slavery to the present, passing their hard-earned knowledge and skills down through the generations, and shaping today’s racing industry.

“This is where people have come since the 1950s and 60s to do their research on Black horsemen, Black horsewomen; (Keeneland Library) is the repository for a lot of the images that (visitors) see and a lot of images folks haven’t seen, particularly of early Black horsemen,” Ferraro explains. “For all these years we’ve been connecting researchers to the information and image resources that they need, it was finally time to be able to share our content with the world.”

LaVon Williams and Isaac Murphy

If any passion in the Bluegrass can surpass horse racing, it is University of Kentucky men’s basketball. The Wildcats have been a college hoops power since the 1920s, racking up 17 appearances in the NCAA Basketball Tournament Final Four and eight national championships accumulated from the ‘40s through their last in 2012. Only UCLA has more in the sport’s history.

Lexington-based artist and woodcarver LaVon Williams (b. 1958; Lakeland, FL) played on UK’s 1978 National Championship team before pursuing a brief professional basketball career. He was commissioned to produce original carvings for “The Heart of the Turf.”

“I didn’t like people telling me what to do and coaches have a tendency to tell you what to do,” Williams told Forbes.com of his transition from sports to art. “In sports, you’re always trying to please somebody. You have to please the (fans) or the coach, but as an artist, I’m pleasing myself. I always had a sense of freedom ever since I was a kid and art gave me that freedom. It gives me a joy, it gives me a freedom that sports never did.”

In between sports and art, Williams tried his hand in the corporate world, working in financial services.

“In the financial area, it was so much pressure. I didn’t want to deal with that pressure because I had dealt with it at (University of) Kentucky,” Williams explains. “I didn’t want to deal with that type of energy. One day, I walked into the office, looked around, and just walked out.”

Leaving a stable and lucrative profession for the uncertain life of an artist is a risky move, but it has paid of for Williams whose “Urban folk art” has been exhibited nationally.

His artworks in “The Heart of the Turf” take their inspiration from Isaac Murphy.

“I always knew about Isaac Murphy because my father was a history teacher and one of the things he would always talk about was horseracing,” Williams said.

“Isaac Murphy was arguably the greatest jockey in North American history, and some would argue in global history,” Ferraro said. “He has a win percentage of at least 44%–unprecedented–no one has ever come close to that. He was born in a county that’s adjacent to (Keeneland) in Fayette County.”

Murphy lived and based his work out of Lexington’s East End and when the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame inducted its first class of Hall of Fame members, Murphy was the first inductee.

Stars at the Track, Segregated Away

“There are ample examples of Black trainers during segregation and during the Civil Right Movement specifically who might be the leading trainer in a given meet or in the top five trainers in a given meet and despite that accomplishment, their names were still not listed in the program. Or a meet holding trainer whose wife was not allowed to enter the track,” Ferraro explains.

Remember, most of this history occurred prior to the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, not that its adoption instantly stopped racism and discrimination around America, particularly in the South.

Jimmy Wingfield won the Kentucky Derby in 1902, the last African American jockey to claim the sport’s top prize. In order to receive the quality mounts (horses) he was accustomed to jockeying and claim the earnings he was accustomed to winning, he had to leave the U.S. and race overseas. He experienced tremendous success in Russia, Poland, Germany and France.

In 1961, he returned to the States for medical care and to be honored by the National Turf Writers at an awards dinner held at the Brown Hotel in Louisville during Kentucky Derby week.

“He is the entire reason why the event is taking place, the honored guest, and he wasn’t permitted into the hotel,” Ferraro said. “The turf writers of the time convene with hotel management and address that, but these are the types of stories that we share, and those are the conversations that really are the most stimulating… and we don’t shy away from those types of questions, we encourage it as much as we can.”

African American jockeys continue to be a rarity, although their numbers and opportunities for success have improved since the civil rights era.

Deshawn Parker has jockeyed in over 36,000 races, taking almost $85 million in prize money for his mounts. In 2022, he became one of only 20 other Americans in North American racing history to surpass 6000 wins. He did so in his early 50s while standing a gigantic, for jockeys, 5 feet 10 inches tall.

Parker’s father was a prominent rider and track official.

Kendrick Carmouche, similarly, comes from a racing family. His career earnings top $135 million.

The Keeneland Library is open year-round to the public from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday.