On Saturday, none of the 20 jockeys in the Kentucky Derby, horse racing’s Super Bowl, will be Black. And that’s not surprising. When Kendrick Carmouche, a Black jockey, competed in 2021, his entrance was made possible only by what was dubbed an “epic upset.” Even with that, it was only the sixth time since 1903 that a Black rider sat in the saddle for America’s most-watched race.
To get to the Derby, Carmouche had won the Wood Memorial by passing eight other horses on a 72-to-1 long shot named Bourbonic, who had been so far back as they rounded the final turn that the track announcer had all but forgotten him. Afterward, Carmouche told a reporter that he hoped getting into the Derby “inspires a lot of people because my road wasn’t easy to get here and I never quit.”
Yet it wasn’t always this way. In the early and mid-19th century, back when the great racehorse Lexington ran, Black jockeys were a crucial part of horse racing. In fact, the sport was one of the few ways for Black Americans, especially enslaved ones, to earn a good living and enjoy freedoms so often denied due to racism and slavery. But by the end of the century, racism drove Black Americans out of horse racing, and those who stuck it out became prey for unscrupulous figures who took advantage of their desperation. These practices changed the face of horse racing in ways that have proved hard to undo.
Before the Civil War, American horse racing was built on the tireless work of untold thousands of enslaved jockeys and trainers. Black horsemen had the knowledge of horse care learned from their daily labor with plantation field horses. Enslaved men and boys were the ones in the barns, riding, feeding and training the horses, as well as caring for their ailments. Because of their skills, they were highly sought by racehorse owners, and, even though enslaved, they were paid. Sometimes handsomely.
Charles Stewart, for example, an enslaved jockey who rode for “Old Nap” William Johnson, a gregarious Southern racehorse promoter in the 1820s and ’30s, enjoyed freedom and financial independence almost unheard of for an enslaved person at the time. Johnson frequently sent Stewart all over the North and South, not only to ride but also, eventually, to train and run an entire string of his racehorses. “I went all alone,” Stewart said of his early jockey days, “and when I was up on that stage in Petersburg in my new suit o’ store clothes, with ten dollars in my pocket and more to come, I was ‘high come up’ I tell you.” As early as 1823, Stewart commanded up to $300 to ride a horse in a race at a time when U.S. Senators only earned eight dollars per day. “I had plenty of money and nobody to say nothing to me,” Stewart said.
Stewart’s experience reflected how racing horses could provide freedom of movement from state to state for enslaved jockeys, as well as the ability to ignore the severe curfew regulations otherwise imposed on enslaved people by harsh city ordinances. Horse racing also dangled the possibility of acclaim. National newspapers occasionally lifted Black jockeys, enslaved or free, out of the stranglehold of inequality and anonymity by crediting them with the same level of skill, if not better, than their White counterparts.
Yet, perversely, wealth and fame could not save enslaved horsemen from the brutal precarity and uncertainty that afflicted all enslaved people. At any time, they could be sold back into a life where they were valued at less than the horses they rode.
When the Civil War broke out, it nearly wiped out horse racing below the Mason-Dixon Line. Southern Black jockeys headed North. One of them, Abe Hawkins of New Orleans, took his saddle to the New York tracks, where he continued earning ear-thundering applause and rolls of cash — so much so that when Hawkins’s former enslaver’s plantation home was destroyed in the war, Hawkins offered to pay to rebuild it. “As a rider and a jockey, he had no equal in this country,” wrote one of the preeminent racing journals in his 1867 obituary.
But toward the turn of the century, Jim Crow laws forced racial segregation throughout the South — with racecourses no exception. Whereas Black and White patrons once sat together in the same stands before the Civil War, those stands were now starkly divided by race.
That spirit of separation and “better than” social standings also affected how White jockeys viewed their Black counterparts. Some horse owners still chose some Black jockeys, like Hall of Fame rider Jimmy Winkfield, to ride promising horses. But most of the rest were run off the racecourse. White jockeys, incensed that Black men could and did receive the same pay and offers to ride better horses, formed alliances to force their Black counterparts out of the sport.
In 1939, historian Charles B. Parmer chronicled some of the dirty racing tactics they employed. White jockeys “pocketed” Black riders and their mounts, “thrusting” them back in the race. On other occasions, “a white boy would run alongside, slip a foot under a black boy’s stirrup, and toss him out of the saddle.” Sometimes, White jockeys even — “while ostensibly whipping their own horses” — lashed out and cut the nearest Black rider. As Parmer concluded, these White riders “literally ran the black boys off the track.”
That violence and racial disdain had a secondary impact on the opportunities afforded to Black jockeys: although horse trainers and owners recognized their skill, they shunned these riders for fear their horses would be lashed and injured by White riders. Racial discrimination even affected how bettors placed their hard-earned cash. Horses ridden by Black men fell miserably in the odds. And so the sport that had been built by Black horsemen became a sport in which Black men were seldom welcomed.
Compounding matters, by the early 20th century, the Black jockeys who hadn’t been run out of the profession had to contend with vultures who saw them only as easy prey. Desperately in need of work, some Black jockeys signed away their lives to indentured servitude. In the case of one young Black rider in Louisiana named Wallace Hicks, his father signed over his parental rights to a lawyer who thereafter outsourced the young rider’s jockeying services for a high profit while returning very little to the boy or his father.
This was the kind of life that Black jockeys, once so highly sought and usually well-paid, had come to expect and endure.
By the early 20th century, the avenues for wealth, acclaim and equality that horse racing had offered Black jockeys had disappeared, and the sport became increasingly White.
But some of the racism that plagued horse racing at that time has softened in the 21st century, owing in good measure to the success and dominance of Latin American riders. While that has opened the door for Black jockeys, there is still a deep inequity at play.
According to Equibase, so far this year, Carmouche has raced 235 times, and the horses he has ridden have won over $2 million in purses. That’s roughly a quarter of what horses ridden by the No. 1 jockey in North America, Irad Ortiz, Jr., have earned in 560 races. It’s unknown whether the disparity in starts owes to individual choice or a lack of opportunity for Carmouche. But his experience clearly reflects both how the racism and outrage that once drove away skilled Black riders has softened and how no Black jockey has yet truly reached the pinnacle of a sport that they dominated in the 19th century.
The damage done by the heinous practices that drove Black riders from the sport — the demolition of trust and equality — takes years to repair. After his Wood Memorial win in 2021, Carmouche said, “What I’ve been wanting all my career is to inspire people and make people know that it’s not about color. It’s about how successful you are in life and how far you can fight to get to that point.” Carmouche is a gifted jockey. His success offers hope that more Black riders may get opportunities in America’s biggest races, which may, in turn, restore Black riders to the lofty positions held by their forebears in the 19th century. But not at this year’s Kentucky Derby.