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Speaker 1: Happy Saturday everyone. Today is the first Saturday in May,

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Speaker 1: which typically would be Kentucky Derby Day, but the Derby

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Speaker 1: has been postponed until September five of this year because

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Speaker 1: of the COVID nineteen pandemic. But we thought today might

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Speaker 1: be a good day to re release our previous episode

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Speaker 1: on the Kentucky Derby's first fifty years. This episode originally

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Speaker 1: came out May three, so enjoy Welcome to Stuff You

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Speaker 1: Missed in History Class, a production of I Heart Radio. Hello,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy B. Wilson and

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Speaker 1: I'm Holly Frying. Clearly, one of the projects I've been

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Speaker 1: working on for our podcast is a huge this Day

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Speaker 1: in History calendar of all of our past shows, uh in.

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Speaker 1: An unexpected side effect of this is that I keep

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Speaker 1: adding people and events to the my short list of

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Speaker 1: things to talk about as I stumble upon things that

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Speaker 1: happened on a particular day. One of those tidbits is

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Speaker 1: that on May three, nineteen fifty two, that was the

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Speaker 1: first time the Kentucky Derby was nationally televised. That piece

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Speaker 1: of knowledge sent me down a Kentucky Derby rabbit hole,

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Speaker 1: and that has brought us to today's episode. Although horse

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Speaker 1: racing in general has been around much longer than the

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Speaker 1: Kentucky Derby has, including in the United States, the Derby

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Speaker 1: itself has become the nation's most famous and prestigious horse

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Speaker 1: race event, and sort of like Super Bowl Sunday and

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Speaker 1: some circles, the first Saturday in May has become a

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Speaker 1: huge production, even among people who don't normally pay attention

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Speaker 1: the horse racing at all. For the rest of the year,

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Speaker 1: more than a hundred and sixty thousand people watched the

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Speaker 1: Derby in person at Churchill Downs, with more than fifteen

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Speaker 1: million watching it on the TV. Our past host Sarah

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Speaker 1: and Bublina talked just a little bit about the overall

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Speaker 1: Kentucky Derby history and their twenty eleven episode on jockey

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Speaker 1: Jimmy Winkfield. So today we're going to talk about that

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Speaker 1: in a lot more detail, and the Saturday after this

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Speaker 1: podcast comes out, the Kentucky Derby is going to be

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Speaker 1: run for the hundred and forty third time. That is

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Speaker 1: way too much history for thirty minutes. So what we're

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Speaker 1: really who are really going to focus on is the

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Speaker 1: races first fifty years, which really established the things that

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Speaker 1: have become the cultural hallmarks about it today. Horse racing,

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Speaker 1: of course, is one of mankind's oldest sports. It's been

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Speaker 1: around for so long that we actually can't conclusively pinpoint

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Speaker 1: its origins, but chariot races and races of mounted riders

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Speaker 1: were both part of the Olympic Games in ancient Greece.

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Speaker 1: In Europe, Asia, and Northern Africa, cultures that evalued horses

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Speaker 1: and horsemanship have all had their own horse racing traditions

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Speaker 1: going back thousands of years. In the America's horses became

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Speaker 1: extinct somewhere between eight thousand and twelve thousand years ago,

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Speaker 1: but when Europe has reintroduced horses in the fifteenth century,

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Speaker 1: indigenous peoples, particularly in the plains, developed their own racing traditions.

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Speaker 1: The existence of horse racing has also led to the

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Speaker 1: development of racing specific breeds of horses. One of those

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Speaker 1: breeds is the Thoroughbred, which originated in England. Thoroughbreds can

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Speaker 1: be traced back to three stallions known as the Foundation Sires.

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Speaker 1: These were imported into England in the seventeenth century and

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Speaker 1: are known as the Darly Arabian, the Godolphin Arabian, and

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Speaker 1: the Bayerley Turk once the thoroughbred breed was established, racist specifically,

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Speaker 1: four thoroughbreds followed. Traditionally, a Derby is a race for

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Speaker 1: three year old thoroughbreds open to both colts and phillies.

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Speaker 1: Whether gelded horses are eligible can actually vary. The first

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Speaker 1: Derby was named for its host, the twelfth Earl of Derby,

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Speaker 1: and was run at Epsom in Surrey, England, in seventeen eighty.

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Speaker 1: The Epsom Oaks open only to phillies, actually started the

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Speaker 1: year prior, and it was named for the Earl's nearby

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Speaker 1: as state. As a side note, we do know that

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Speaker 1: the race is pronounced Derby in Britain. We are not

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Speaker 1: in Britain. It is pronounced Derby here. But now I

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Speaker 1: will think of the Kentucky Derby. Is the Kentucky Derby,

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Speaker 1: and it will crack me up every time, consistently so.

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Speaker 1: Because of this connection to the aristocracy and all of

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Speaker 1: the expense involved with owning and caring for a race horse,

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Speaker 1: and often lavish celebrations that run alongside prestigious horse racing,

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Speaker 1: racing horses has become known as the sport of kings.

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Speaker 1: Although according to the Oxford Dictionary, hunting, surfing, and warfare

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Speaker 1: are all also the sport of kings. I suspect there's

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Speaker 1: some bias there, depending on which sport you just paid

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Speaker 1: in yep. By the end of the seventeen hundreds, the

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Speaker 1: race at Epsom definitely was not just for kings though.

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Speaker 1: It had become a sprawling social event known as the

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Speaker 1: Londoner's Day Out, which attracted both the aristocracy and the

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Speaker 1: working class. Tens of thousands of people attended every year,

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Speaker 1: some of them ditching work to do so. Although the

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Speaker 1: race itself was a prestigious sporting event, many of the

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Speaker 1: attendees were more interested in gambling and carousing than in

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Speaker 1: the race itself, and the gambling wasn't just on the

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Speaker 1: outcome of the race. Tents popped up all along the downs,

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Speaker 1: where people lay wagers on cards and dice. It was

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Speaker 1: his experience at Epsom that inspired Meriwether Lewis Clark Jr.

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Speaker 1: To start a similar race in the United States. Clark

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Speaker 1: was the grandson of William Clark, who explored North America

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Speaker 1: and the Corps of Discovery with Meriwether Lewis Clark, who

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Speaker 1: was then twenty six and newly married, traveled around Europe

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Speaker 1: with his wife in eighteen seventy two. In eighteen seventy three,

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Speaker 1: on this trip, he went to the at this point

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Speaker 1: incredibly well established races at Epsom and elsewhere, and he

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Speaker 1: made friends with members of jockey clubs all around England

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Speaker 1: and France. So when Clark got back to the United States,

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Speaker 1: he set to work trying to found a derby near

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Speaker 1: his family home in Louisville, Kentucky. Horse racing was already

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Speaker 1: an established pastime in the United States in general and

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Speaker 1: in Kentucky specifically. In Louisville, the horse racing industry had

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Speaker 1: started with races down Market Street at least as far

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Speaker 1: back as nine As horse races on city streets became

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Speaker 1: a problem, tracks were built to accommodate those races. Commercial

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Speaker 1: horse breeding was already part of the Louisville area and

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Speaker 1: Kentucky as a whole, although the track that had been

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Speaker 1: hosting the thoroughbred races had closed down in the years

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Speaker 1: prior to Clark's trip abroad. First, Clark needed a place

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Speaker 1: to start a track, and he got this from his

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Speaker 1: uncle's John and Henry Churchill, who leased him the land

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Speaker 1: that would later become known as Churchill downs, but the

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Speaker 1: land by itself was not enough. He also needed enough

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Speaker 1: money to fund the construction of an actual racetrack, a

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Speaker 1: grand stand and the like, and this came from selling

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Speaker 1: subscription memberships, three hundred and twenty of them for the

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Speaker 1: price of a hundred dollars each. This was enough to

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Speaker 1: let him old six stables, the clubhouse, the grand stand,

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Speaker 1: and the porter's lodge. All this became home to the

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Speaker 1: Louisville Jockey Club and Driving Park, which held its first

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Speaker 1: Kentucky Derby on May, with four races being run that day.

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Speaker 1: Three continued to be an annual tradition, the Kentucky Derby

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Speaker 1: run on the first Saturday in May, the Kentucky Oaks

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Speaker 1: run the day before, and the Clark Handicap run in

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Speaker 1: November or December. In that first Kentucky Derby, fifteen three

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Speaker 1: year old thoroughbreds, thirteen colts and two phillies ran a

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Speaker 1: mile and a half are roughly two point four kilometers

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Speaker 1: in front of a crowd of about ten thousand people.

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Speaker 1: People of means were in the clubhouse or the grand stand,

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Speaker 1: and the race and the racetracks in field was open

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Speaker 1: to anyone who wanted to come for free. That very

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Speaker 1: first race set a lot of the standards that the

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Speaker 1: Kentucky Derby is still known for today, and we're going

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Speaker 1: to talk about those after we first pause for a

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Speaker 1: little sponsor break. The idea that Derby Day was something

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Speaker 1: special and specific to Kentucky was present right from the

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Speaker 1: very first one. On May eight seventy five, the Louisville

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Speaker 1: Courier Journal proclaimed quote, today will be historic in Kentucky

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Speaker 1: annals as the first Derby Day of what promises to

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Speaker 1: be a long series of annual turf festivities of which

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Speaker 1: we confidently expect our grandchildren a hundred years hence to

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Speaker 1: celebrate inglorious rejoicings. So they get points for accuracy of prediction.

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Speaker 1: That was right. Uh. The infield had a lot of

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Speaker 1: the same day out atmosphere Clark had seen at EPSOM,

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Speaker 1: and it attracted an array of locals from various walks

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Speaker 1: of life. But in the grand stand and clubhouse, Meriwether

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Speaker 1: Lewis Clark Jr. Wanted the event to be a classy

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Speaker 1: and prestigious affair, so full morning dress was required and

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Speaker 1: the ladies were encouraged to attend, although they were barred

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Speaker 1: from the betting shed because it was an unsuitable place

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Speaker 1: for them. That means that the hats that have become

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Speaker 1: a Derby tradition where they are from the very beginning

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Speaker 1: for the sake of propriety, fashion and the very practical

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Speaker 1: protection from the sun. Although it would be a while

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Speaker 1: before Kentucky Derby hats took the more extravagant turn that

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Speaker 1: they have today. That really came along with the loosening

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Speaker 1: of social expectations in the nineteen sixties, and then it

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Speaker 1: got a further boost with the Royal wedding that seems

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Speaker 1: to have set off some hat one upping of trying

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Speaker 1: to have more strange and unique hat than the ones

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Speaker 1: at the Royal wedding. Clark's effort to class up the

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Speaker 1: place applied on the racetrack as well. Sport of kings

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Speaker 1: or no race tracks often had seedy reputations and connections

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Speaker 1: to sometimes dishonest gamblers. Clark, on the other hand, was

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Speaker 1: scrupulously attentive to the rules, and he had no tolerance

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Speaker 1: at all for cheating, dishonesty, poor sportsmanship, or gambler's attempts

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Speaker 1: to the race. He would not abide anything that seemed

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Speaker 1: shabby or underhanded, and there were people who personally didn't

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Speaker 1: like him. He was known to have a temper, and

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Speaker 1: some people found him arrogant and ostentatious, but even people

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Speaker 1: who didn't get along with him would vouch for his

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Speaker 1: unfailing integrity when it came to the race. Within a decade,

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Speaker 1: the Kentucky Derby had built a solid reputation as both

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Speaker 1: a race and a social event, earning praise in the

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Speaker 1: New York Times and attracting huge crowds of spectators who

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Speaker 1: weren't necessarily interested in racing in their everyday lives. It

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Speaker 1: still had that divide of an everyman experience in the

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Speaker 1: infield and an upper class one in the grand stand

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Speaker 1: and especially the clubhouse. But after a strong start, though,

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Speaker 1: the Derby's success started to wane a bit in the

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Speaker 1: late eighteen eighties, Angry disputes overbetting led some of the

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Speaker 1: industry's most prominent owners to take their horses elsewhere, while

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Speaker 1: also damaging the race's reputation. Reform movements were trying to

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Speaker 1: put a stop to racing, gambling, and drinking, and the

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Speaker 1: Kentucky Derby was also competing with newly launched Derby's elsewhere

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Speaker 1: in the United States, including the American Derby in Chicago.

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Speaker 1: By the middle of the eighteen nineties, the Kentucky Derby

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Speaker 1: was really struggling. Other races were offering bigger purses and

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Speaker 1: that made it hard to attract the best horses and

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Speaker 1: the most prominent owners. The lack of interest trickled down

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Speaker 1: to the race course falling into some disrepair. The Derby

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Speaker 1: did manage to keep going as a social event, especially

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Speaker 1: among locals, but as a race it just wasn't breaking

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Speaker 1: even or carrying the level of prestige that Clark really wanted.

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Speaker 1: In eighteen ninety four, the Louisville Jockey Club, which was

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Speaker 1: by then deeply in debt, was sold to new owners.

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Speaker 1: While the prior owners had been focused on putting on

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Speaker 1: a good race for its own sake, the new owners

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Speaker 1: were mainly businessmen and bookies, and their focus was to

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Speaker 1: make sure that the race made money. They were able

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Speaker 1: to pay off all of the club's creditors except for

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Speaker 1: one Merywether Louis Clark Jr. Who they convinced to stay

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Speaker 1: on board as the races presiding judge, and this was

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Speaker 1: a strategic pr move. Horse racing and especially gambling were

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Speaker 1: under increasing social scrutiny, so they were banking on Clark's

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Speaker 1: stand up reputation to help fend off some of the critics.

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Speaker 1: It was this new ownership that financed the building of

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Speaker 1: a new grand stand with its distinctive twin spires, which

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Speaker 1: was completed in This was larger, it once again had

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Speaker 1: separate seating for ladies to maintain some distance between them

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Speaker 1: and the betting stand, and it faced a different direction

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Speaker 1: from the previous structure, so that people watching the race

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Speaker 1: didn't also have the afternoon sun shining in their eyes.

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Speaker 1: It's nice. Nobody wants to stare into a glare. I

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Speaker 1: really don't. I hate it super hated. Responding to complaints

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Speaker 1: from the horses owners and trainers, the new Derby management

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Speaker 1: also built new stables and in shortened the race's length

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Speaker 1: by a quarter of a mile. That was also the

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Speaker 1: first year that the winning horse, ben Rush, was draped

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Speaker 1: in a garland of roses, although they were pink and

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Speaker 1: white rather than the red that is normally used today.

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Speaker 1: The red rose garland tradition started in ninety two with

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Speaker 1: winner Beru King. In spite of, or perhaps because of,

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Speaker 1: their extensive connections to gambling and bookmaking, the Kentucky Derby

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Speaker 1: really started to turn around financially under this new ownership,

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Speaker 1: But in Clark, who had been diagnosed with what was

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Speaker 1: called then melancolia, died by suicide. Apart from the personal tragedy,

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Speaker 1: this meant that the Kentucky Derby lost its founder, its

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Speaker 1: chief promoter, and its most tireless advocate. He was also

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Speaker 1: the person who had set the stage for it to

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Speaker 1: become such a social and sporting spectacle. Three years later,

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Speaker 1: in nineteen o two, the Derby once again changed hands,

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Speaker 1: this time moving away from bookies and back to people

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Speaker 1: who were prominent parts of Louisville society. This included the mayor,

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Speaker 1: Charles Granger, and Martin J. Matt Wynn, who is better

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Speaker 1: known as Colonel wyn And it was when who took

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Speaker 1: up the mantle of the Derby's public face and the

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Speaker 1: person who really shaped the standard for the Derby's reputation

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Speaker 1: and tone. He, to be clear, was not a military colonel.

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Speaker 1: There's apparently a tradition in Kentucky of giving people colonel

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Speaker 1: as kind of an honorary title. The prior, the prior

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Speaker 1: upgrade to the grand Stand hadn't touched the original clubhouse,

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Speaker 1: which had previously been the place for the Derby's most

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Speaker 1: exclusive and affluent spectators to gather and socialize. Really, the

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Speaker 1: new grand stand had made that old clubhouse basically inaccessible

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Speaker 1: because the gambling focused ownership was a lot more into

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Speaker 1: making it easier to gamble than to provide a luxurious

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Speaker 1: vantage point for the most rich patrons. When Granger and

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Speaker 1: the rest of the third generation of Derby owners reversed

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Speaker 1: that position, they opened a new clubhouse in n O three,

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Speaker 1: and today the clubhouse is really a whole complex of buildings,

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Speaker 1: includes including the exclusive Millionaires Row and When, who had

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Speaker 1: a larger than life personality, poured himself into refining the

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Speaker 1: Kentucky Derby's image, which was in some ways patterned after

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Speaker 1: his own. Together when in the Derby spun out a

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Speaker 1: narrative that the place in the event were deeply and

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Speaker 1: innately Southern and specifically Kentucky in and rich with both

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Speaker 1: culture and bourbon. It threw back to a romanticized ideal

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Speaker 1: of the Old South as a genteel place where people

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Speaker 1: of refinement and taste looked out from their verandahs over

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Speaker 1: green lawns and rolling hills, sipping mint julips, which was

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Speaker 1: by then a traditional Derby drink made with Kentucky Bourbon whiskey.

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Speaker 1: At the same time, this refinement of the Derby's public

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Speaker 1: image was also shifting the rest of the nation's perception

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Speaker 1: of the Commonwealth of Kentucky as a whole and many

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Speaker 1: parts of the nation. Kentucky had long had a reputation

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Speaker 1: as being mostly a very lawless, violent and unrefined place

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Speaker 1: full of hillbillies, particularly in its more mountainous portions. This

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Speaker 1: romantic aura of the Kentucky Derby started to shift that

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Speaker 1: stereotype to make it also a place that could be

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Speaker 1: home to a prestigious, fashionable annual event that can that

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Speaker 1: catered to the rich and famous and the working class alike.

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Speaker 1: Aside from his own personal influence on the Derby, Colonel

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Speaker 1: Winn also made a series of astute decisions that helped

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Speaker 1: bring the Derby more prestige and good press. He convinced

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Speaker 1: wealthy and prominent owners to enter their horses, and one

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Speaker 1: of these was a Philly named Regret, who became the

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Speaker 1: first Philly to win the Derby in nineteen fifteen, which

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Speaker 1: attracted a huge amount of press. When was also one

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Speaker 1: of the first proponents of conceiving of the Derby and

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Speaker 1: to other races, the Preakness in the Belmont as a

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Speaker 1: set of races which are known today as the Triple Crown.

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Speaker 1: The first horse to win all three of these races

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Speaker 1: was Sir Bartan in nineteen nineteen, although the term Triple

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Speaker 1: Crown wasn't officially coined until nineteen thirty. By the nineteen thirties,

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Speaker 1: all the things people readily associate with the Kentucky Derby,

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Speaker 1: the hats, the roses, the julips, the atmosphere were solidly

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Speaker 1: part of the annual event. It's not clear when the

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Speaker 1: eighteen fifty three Stephen Foster song My Old Kentucky Home

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Speaker 1: became a Derby staple, but it was definitely in use

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Speaker 1: by and the slogan run for the Roses was coined

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Speaker 1: by sports columnist Bill Coreum in the same year. The

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Speaker 1: Derby was broadcast on network radio for the first time.

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Speaker 1: By the thirties, you could buy a souvenir glass for

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Speaker 1: your mint julip, an innovation in part in the hope

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Speaker 1: that people would stop stealing the drink wear. At the

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Speaker 1: same time, the Kentucky Derby looks very much different today

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Speaker 1: than it did in its first fifty years, and we're

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Speaker 1: going to talk about how after another quick sponsor break.

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Speaker 1: At various points during its history, which really add up

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Speaker 1: to basically all of its history, the Kentucky Derby has

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Speaker 1: been criticized for a whole range of issues. In addition

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Speaker 1: to the campaigns to end gambling and drinking and racing

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Speaker 1: that we already discussed. In more recent years, the Derby

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Speaker 1: has faced allegations of animal abuses, both during training and

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Speaker 1: in the race itself. This has been especially true after

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Speaker 1: accidents and injuries have happened during or after the race.

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Speaker 1: In two thousand and eight, for example, Philly eight Bells

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Speaker 1: collapsed after the race, having broken both of her front ankles,

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Speaker 1: and she had to be euthanized. Although women were specifically

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Speaker 1: invited to attend the Kentucky Derby from the very beginning,

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Speaker 1: with separate seating away from the bedding falling out of

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Speaker 1: favor in the years after World War One, the Derby

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Speaker 1: has in a lot of ways always been a man's world.

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Speaker 1: Diane Crump was the first woman to ride in the

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Speaker 1: Derby in nine and she's one of only six women

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Speaker 1: jockeys in the Kentucky Derby. As of women have been

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Speaker 1: involved in other roles at the Kentucky Derby. Further back

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Speaker 1: in history, in nineteen o five, Elwood took the prize

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Speaker 1: and was the first Kentucky Derby winner owned by a woman,

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Speaker 1: Alaska Durnell Ellwood was also the first Derby winner bred

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Speaker 1: by a woman, who is cited everywhere as Mrs J. B. Prather.

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Speaker 1: I don't know what her actual first name is, but

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Speaker 1: as of sixteen, no woman trainer or jockey had ever

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Speaker 1: won the Kentucky Derby, and men out number women by

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Speaker 1: far in all of these roles. So today men and

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Speaker 1: in particular white men, dominate the Kentucky Derby scene all

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Speaker 1: the way from most of the Churchill Downs Incorporated board

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Speaker 1: of directors to the jockeys riding in the race. But

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Speaker 1: that wasn't the case when the Derby started. Although marywether

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Speaker 1: Lewis Clark Jr. And his associates and investors were white,

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Speaker 1: the majority of the jockeys and trainers were not. In

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Speaker 1: eighteen seventy five, thirteen out of the Derby's fifteen jockeys

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Speaker 1: and that first race were black, as were many of

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Speaker 1: the trainers. When the Kentucky Derby began, the people who

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Speaker 1: had the most experience caring for and training horses, particularly

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Speaker 1: in the South, were black, and since the first Derby

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Speaker 1: took place only about a decade after the Civil War

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Speaker 1: and the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery, and

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Speaker 1: Kentucky had been a slave state, many of the men

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Speaker 1: who had trained and cared for and rode in the

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Speaker 1: first Kentucky Derby were either previously enslaved or were the

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Speaker 1: children of people who had been enslaved. In that first

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Speaker 1: eighteen seventy five Kentucky Derby, the winning horse was Aristides,

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Speaker 1: who set a record for speed in three year old horses.

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Speaker 1: Aristides trainer Ansel Williamson and his jockey, nineteen year old

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Speaker 1: Oliver Lewis, were both black. Williamson was enslaved from birth

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Speaker 1: and sold from one owner to another until being emancipated

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Speaker 1: following the Civil War. Between that first Derby in nineteen

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Speaker 1: o two, when Jimmy Winkfield rode allan a Dale to

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Speaker 1: the Wind, which was Winkfield's second consecutive win. Fifteen of

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Speaker 1: the twin the eight winning horses were ridden by black jockeys,

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Speaker 1: and those years between Oliver Lewis and Jimmy Winkfield. Other

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Speaker 1: black jockeys rose to prominence at the Derby and eventually

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Speaker 1: became the era's version of the sports superstar. Isaac Burns

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Speaker 1: Murphy was the first jockey to win the Derby three times,

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Speaker 1: which he did in eighteen eighty four eighteen eighteen ninety one.

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Speaker 1: He became a colossally well respected jockey, winning forty four

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Speaker 1: percent of the races he rode in, which is a

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Speaker 1: record no other jockey has topped. The post Civil War

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Speaker 1: reconstruction officially ended in eighteen seventy six, the year after

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Speaker 1: the first Kentucky Derby racist Jim Crow. Laws enforcing segregation

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Speaker 1: soon followed. In eighteen ninety six, the U. S. Supreme

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Speaker 1: Court ruled in plus e versus Ferguson that this segregation

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Speaker 1: was legal as long as the separate facilities were equal,

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Speaker 1: and by that point a lot of other sports had

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Speaker 1: already implemented their own systems of segregation. However, it is

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Speaker 1: not possible to quickly segregate the sport of horse racing

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Speaker 1: when so much of the knowledge of how to care

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Speaker 1: for a horse and ride it to a win rested

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Speaker 1: with black people. As long as training and riding a

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Speaker 1: horse had been regarded as labor and not as a

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Speaker 1: job that could turn someone into a celebrity. It hadn't

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Speaker 1: mattered as much to the white racing community to do

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Speaker 1: anything about it. But when black jockeys started to become

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Speaker 1: famous for their work and respected for it, that success

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Speaker 1: became a threat. For a while, the mythology of the

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Speaker 1: Kentucky Derby maintained that the shift to primarily white trainers

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Speaker 1: and jockeys had been a quote natural one, that all

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Speaker 1: the old jockeys and trainers had moved north during the

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Speaker 1: Great Migration which began in the nineteen teens, or that

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Speaker 1: the black men had lost their taste of agricultural work

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Speaker 1: and had gone to work in factories instead. But this

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Speaker 1: was absolutely untrue. By the late eighteen eighties and early

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Speaker 1: eighteen nineties, the white racing community was making a dedicated

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Speaker 1: and deliberate effort to for black jockeys and trainers out

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Speaker 1: of the industry. Black jockeys started experiencing harassment both on

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Speaker 1: and off the track, with white jockeys forcing them into

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Speaker 1: the rails during the race or actually striking them with

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Speaker 1: their horse whips. This last one was not only physically painful,

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Speaker 1: but was also humiliating because it harkened back to whips

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Speaker 1: being used to punish slaves. By the turn of the

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Speaker 1: twentieth century, black jockeys were having trouble finding contracts to

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Speaker 1: ride horses, and black trainers were finding themselves out of work,

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Speaker 1: with owners seeking out white jockeys and trainers. The tracks

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Speaker 1: played their part as well, with many explicitly banning black

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Speaker 1: jockeys by n O. Four. So it was under intentional

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Speaker 1: systemic racism that black jockeys were forced out of the

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Speaker 1: Kentucky Derby and of the racing industry in general. There

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Speaker 1: were no black jockeys at all in the Kentucky Derby

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Speaker 1: between one and two thousand. That year Marlon St. Julian

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Speaker 1: owed and placed seventh. It would be more than another

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Speaker 1: decade after Hero that the Derby would see another black jockey,

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Speaker 1: and that was Kevin Krieger from who was originally from St. Croix,

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Speaker 1: who rolled Golden Sense in Derby. All of this, of course,

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Speaker 1: complicates the Kentucky Derby's romanticized presentation of life in the South.

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Speaker 1: It's a lot of the same tropes that are used

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Speaker 1: to romanticize plantations and Antebellum life, which while it looks

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Speaker 1: very romantic on the surface. When you really takeing andandre

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Speaker 1: at it, it's very problematic. Yes, the even the term

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Speaker 1: plantation comes with this aura of like beautiful magnolia trees

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Speaker 1: and sip and sweet tea on your on your front porch,

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Speaker 1: but it was effectively a slave labor camp which does

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Speaker 1: not have that same romanticized ideas. So um, there are

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Speaker 1: definitely parallels between the overall narrative that tries to like

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Speaker 1: shift the perception of it slave states in the South

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Speaker 1: were like and the perception of what the Kentucky Derby

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Speaker 1: was like and why there was such a shift in

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Speaker 1: the demographics of who was training and riding and taking

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Speaker 1: care of the horses. Thank you so much for joining

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Speaker 1: us today for this Saturday classic. If you have heard

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Speaker 1: any kind of email address or maybe a Facebook you

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00:25:27,880 --> 00:25:29,920
Speaker 1: are l during the course of the episode, that might

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Speaker 1: be obsolete. It might be doubly obsolete because we have

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Speaker 1: changed our email address again. You can now reach us

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Speaker 1: at History podcast at i heart radio dot com, and

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00:25:39,359 --> 00:25:42,280
Speaker 1: we're all over social media at missed in History, and

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00:25:42,359 --> 00:25:46,159
Speaker 1: you can subscribe to our show on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts,

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00:25:46,200 --> 00:25:48,800
Speaker 1: the I heart Radio app, and wherever else you listen

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Speaker 1: to podcasts Steph, You missed in History Class is a

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Speaker 1: production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I

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Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, app podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H m

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Speaker 1: hm