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Speaker 1: Hey, I hope everybody is having a great weekend. It

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Speaker 1: is Kentucky Derby weekend, so we thought this might be

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Speaker 1: a good time to revisit previous hosts Sarah and Deblina's

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Speaker 1: episode from eleven on Jimmy Winkfield, who won the Kentucky

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Speaker 1: Derby twice and no other black man has won the

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Speaker 1: Derby since. We also talk about the Derby in our

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Speaker 1: episode the Kentucky Derby's First fifty Years, which you can

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Speaker 1: find in our archive if you want some more Derby

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Speaker 1: stories today, So put on your fancy hat and enjoy.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Steph you missed in history class from house

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm to blame a choko reboarding and I'm say and

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Speaker 1: the Kentucky Derby is coming up on May seven, and

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Speaker 1: so I thought this would be an okay time to

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Speaker 1: confess that I have an inexplicable bowl fascination with horse racing.

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Speaker 1: Really surprised me about you you told me this earlier

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Speaker 1: in the day. Yeah, I don't even know what it is.

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Speaker 1: It's not like I mean, I've ridden horses before, but

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Speaker 1: I wasn't really very much into it growing up. I

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Speaker 1: had some friends who were, but even they weren't into racing,

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Speaker 1: so I don't really know what it is except for

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Speaker 1: just the stories behind the jockeys, behind the horses and

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Speaker 1: the trainers. It always seems whenever I tune into the

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Speaker 1: Kentucky Derby every year, I hear all these stories of

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Speaker 1: triumph over adversity, and I don't know great comebacks. I

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Speaker 1: imagine you have like a secret hat collection you bring

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Speaker 1: out for the Kentucky Derby, Sarah, I only wish. But

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Speaker 1: before we go any further, for those who aren't familiar

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Speaker 1: with the Derby, it's one of the classic American horse

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Speaker 1: races and probably the most widely known in the US.

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Speaker 1: It started in eight seventy five and it takes place

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Speaker 1: annually the first Saturday in May at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky.

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Speaker 1: The race stist In says about one point to five

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Speaker 1: miles one mile and a quarter and it's often called

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Speaker 1: the most exciting two minutes in sports. Yeah, and like

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Speaker 1: I mentioned, we do associate things like big hats with

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Speaker 1: the Kentucky Derby, mint juleps, high rollers, that kind of thing.

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Speaker 1: It's a very elite event and at least in the

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Speaker 1: last one hundred years or so. It's not that racially diverse.

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Speaker 1: Certainly that's not the way you think of it. But

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Speaker 1: as we're gonna learn, there was a time in the

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Speaker 1: early days of the Derby when African American jockeys dominated

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Speaker 1: the US horse racing scene. Yeah, and so here we're

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Speaker 1: going to talk about the last black jockey to win

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Speaker 1: the Kentucky Derby, Kentucky native actually, whose name was Jimmy Winkfield.

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Speaker 1: And we'll take a look at his short but successful

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Speaker 1: US career and the events that brought that to a close,

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Speaker 1: and his remarkable experience as abroad. But first, um, we

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Speaker 1: want to look a little bit at this history of

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Speaker 1: African Americans and horse racing, so we can trace African

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Speaker 1: Americans participation in this board to colonial times when the

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Speaker 1: British brought their passion for horse racing to America, and

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Speaker 1: according to an article in The Smithsonian by Lisa Kay Winkler,

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Speaker 1: even founding fathers George Washington and Thomas Jefferson frequented the track,

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Speaker 1: and former President Andrew Jackson had his own thoroughbreds and

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Speaker 1: black jockeys so very much a part of our an

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Speaker 1: illustrious start but the first black jockeys were slaves, and

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Speaker 1: they got their skills and their affinity for horses, their

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Speaker 1: connection to horses from doing sort of the menial we're

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Speaker 1: cleaning the stables or grooming the owners valuable animals. And

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Speaker 1: Winkler points out that being on the racing circuit once,

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Speaker 1: once black jockeys did start making it big, gave them

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Speaker 1: a sort of false sense of freedom. It was one

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Speaker 1: of the few ways that they could achieve real status,

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Speaker 1: and a lot of them did. They went all the

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Speaker 1: way to the top in American horse racing. In the

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Speaker 1: first Kentucky Derby in eighteen thirteen, out of fifteen jockeys

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Speaker 1: were black, and among the first twenty eight Derby winners,

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Speaker 1: fifteen of them were black. So they were they were

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Speaker 1: dominating the horse racing scene. Yeah, exactly. And this was

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Speaker 1: the environment that James Winkfield was born into on April twelfth,

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Speaker 1: eighteen eighty two, in Kentucky, and he was the youngest

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Speaker 1: son of George and Victoria Winkfield, who had a total

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Speaker 1: of seventeen kids. They were farmers, basically sharecroppers, and lived

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Speaker 1: in a shotgun shock so some of the kids actually

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Speaker 1: had to spill out on the porch at night to sleep. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but little James definitely got interested in horses and racing early,

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Speaker 1: probably in no small part because he was growing up

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Speaker 1: in bluegrass country and he heard he probably saw the

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Speaker 1: horses and also heard the stories of black jockeys making

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Speaker 1: a name for themselves and getting big, and lucky for him,

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Speaker 1: he didn't get big. He's stayed small, which is of

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Speaker 1: course a requirement for professional jockeys. Even though he had

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Speaker 1: some siblings who were six ft tall, this is quite

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Speaker 1: a discrepancy because by his teen years he was only

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Speaker 1: five ft tall and less than one pounds, so perfect

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Speaker 1: build for a jockey. Yeah. And he started out just

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Speaker 1: bugging other groomers in his area until they finally gave

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Speaker 1: in and let him do some of their work for free.

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Speaker 1: Sounds like a pretty good deal to me if you're

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Speaker 1: one of those workers. But Jimmy then got hired on

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Speaker 1: as a groomer and an exercise boy, so he got

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Speaker 1: his own gig and this is how he got his

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Speaker 1: experience in training and kind of got discovered just riding

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Speaker 1: horses as an exerciser. And there were some trainers who

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Speaker 1: were looking out for opportunities all the time. To turn

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Speaker 1: riders into jockeys, looking for people who just seemed to

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Speaker 1: have that natural talent. And that's how Jimmy got his

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Speaker 1: first break in at age sixteen. Yeah, so he rode

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Speaker 1: a race at Chicago's Hawthorn race Course. But it didn't

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Speaker 1: turn out to be the big break he was really

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Speaker 1: looking for it. In fact, it was quite a disaster.

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Speaker 1: His horse broke next to last at the start, and

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Speaker 1: then when he thought he saw an opening, he broke

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Speaker 1: fourth from the rail and cut across the path of

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Speaker 1: three horses and he took them all down in the

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Speaker 1: process and got suspended for a year because of it.

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Speaker 1: He came back though in eighteen nine, strong as ever. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he started winning races in Chicago. For example, in nineteen

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Speaker 1: hundred he rode in his first Kentucky Derby, and that

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Speaker 1: was out of four races four Kentucky Derby races. I

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Speaker 1: should say that he would ride in total. In nineteen

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Speaker 1: hundred he placed third. The next two years he placed

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Speaker 1: first in the Kentucky Derby, first on a horse called

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Speaker 1: His Eminence and then on Allan a Dale, And this

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Speaker 1: made him only the second jockey to win two successive

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Speaker 1: Derby's and I mean there's still really aren't that many

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Speaker 1: jockeys who can claim that our feet indeed, and in

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Speaker 1: nineteen o three he finished second because he made his

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Speaker 1: move too soon, and it was a loss that always

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Speaker 1: bugged him. I mean, he was hoping to go for

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Speaker 1: three in a row there, it seems. Yeah, I've read

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Speaker 1: that he actually talked about that loss until his death.

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Speaker 1: You know that he should have won it, Yeah, the

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Speaker 1: one that going away. So by that time, the US

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Speaker 1: horse racing scene was already changing thanks to racism, segregation,

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Speaker 1: Jim Crow laws and the economy me played a part.

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Speaker 1: Two recessions at the time really shrunk the number of

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Speaker 1: race tracks and the attendance at the race tracks that

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Speaker 1: were still open. And they were also anti gambling groups

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Speaker 1: going around, so that was further shutting down the number

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Speaker 1: of race tracks that were operating. Yeah, definitely, they went

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Speaker 1: down from three fourteen tracks in eighteen ninety to twenty

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Speaker 1: five by nineteen o eight, so really big dive and

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Speaker 1: white jockeys also didn't like competing with black jockeys for

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Speaker 1: the best mount so at times there was outright violence.

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Speaker 1: I mean during races on the track, black jockeys would

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Speaker 1: sometimes we pushed towards the rail um. There was even

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Speaker 1: a riot in Chicago between the white and the black jockeys. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so times were definitely changing, and you can really tell.

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Speaker 1: Even though Winkfield one more than one hundred and sixty

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Speaker 1: races in nineteen o one, Goodwin's annual Official Guide to

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Speaker 1: the Turf admitted his name, so he he wasn't even

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Speaker 1: a player even anymore, even though he was still winning. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and perhaps more seriously, or definitely more seriously, I should say,

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Speaker 1: he received death threats from the ku Klux Klan. So

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Speaker 1: it was getting really hard for a black jockey to

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Speaker 1: work in the United States anymore. And all those reasons

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Speaker 1: were contributing for sure. But he really sort of put

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Speaker 1: the final nail in his own coffin for his US

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Speaker 1: career because in nineteen o three, he was scheduled to

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Speaker 1: ride for one owner in the Futurity Stakes in New

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Speaker 1: York City and then he accepted a three thousand dollar

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Speaker 1: offer to switch horses and ride on the favorite. And

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Speaker 1: this was a big faux pot. I mean, as you

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Speaker 1: can imagine, switching horses at the last minute, and it

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Speaker 1: really hurt his reputation. Yeah, so after the horse switch incident,

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Speaker 1: Winkfield's number of rides dropped by a third. So he

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Speaker 1: ended up moving to Russia in nineteen o four, where

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Speaker 1: he accepted a position with an American owned stable, and

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Speaker 1: there his career really took off again. His first year

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Speaker 1: there he won the Czar's trip Crown, which is the Moscow,

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Speaker 1: the St. Petersburg and the Warsaw Derby's and he was

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Speaker 1: also the nineteen o four Russian national writing champion. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and over the years he just kind of kept on,

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Speaker 1: winning the Moscow Derby four more times on one horse alone,

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Speaker 1: and then several other times on different mouths. He rode

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Speaker 1: on and off for different owners of Polish Prince the

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Speaker 1: German Baron, so he wasn't just riding in Russia. He

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Speaker 1: was riding in Austria and Germany and France too, and

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Speaker 1: making a lot of money doing it. Yeah. His salary

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Speaker 1: at one point was seventeen thousand roubles, so it would

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Speaker 1: have been equal to about eight thousand, five hundred dollars

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Speaker 1: at the time per year, plus ten percent of every

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Speaker 1: purse that he won, so he was pretty well off

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Speaker 1: to say the least. He was living in this fancy

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Speaker 1: schmancy hotel, the National hotel in Moscow and having caviare

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Speaker 1: for breakfast. As we know, though, by nineteen seventeen or so,

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Speaker 1: there was trouble brewing in Russia and the Bolsheviks and

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Speaker 1: the Communists are getting organized, and the racing community was

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Speaker 1: really at risk because it was something that rich people did.

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Speaker 1: It was a symbol of the aristocracy, and so Winfield,

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Speaker 1: to protect himself had to walk around in tattered clothing

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Speaker 1: to avoid getting arrested by Bolsheviks. I still think that's

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Speaker 1: quite I don't know, it's it's hard to imagine this

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Speaker 1: five foot tall guy walking around and what did they

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Speaker 1: think of him? Like he would still stick out? I

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Speaker 1: think definitely. He was working in Odessa for Prince Louma,

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Speaker 1: miss Key of Poland and nineteen nineteen when the Russian

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Speaker 1: Revolution finally caught up to him, when they started hearing

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Speaker 1: the sound of cannons, he and the rest of the

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Speaker 1: racing community, which included horsemen and their families and about

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Speaker 1: two fifty two and sixty horses something in there, they

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Speaker 1: all took off an escaped to Poland. It was a

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Speaker 1: really hazardous journey one thousand, one hundred miles to Warsaw.

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Speaker 1: They had to cross the Transylvanian Alps, and they had

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Speaker 1: to actually unfortunately eat some of the horses along away

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Speaker 1: because they got desperate for food. But they did make

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Speaker 1: it eventually. Yeah, and once he was in Poland, Wingfield

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Speaker 1: again resumed his riding career and started to recoup his fortune,

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Speaker 1: most of which he lost when he left Russia. Even

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Speaker 1: though he was getting older, he did become a successful

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Speaker 1: writer again. He continued as a jockey through the nineteen twenties.

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Speaker 1: He won several stakes races and altogether he ended up

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Speaker 1: winning two thousand, six hundred races in his entire riding career.

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Speaker 1: That was one amazing thing I thought about this story.

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Speaker 1: I kept expecting some sort of sad end, but he

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Speaker 1: keeps bouncing back time after time. He does. In two

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Speaker 1: even when he was as he was building up his

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Speaker 1: racing again and still writing, he built a stable in

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Speaker 1: a home near Paris in Mason Lafitte. He had a

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Speaker 1: little family there with him too, by then, a son

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Speaker 1: and a daughter with his third wife, who was an

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Speaker 1: exiled Russian aristocrat named Lydia de Mickowitz. So when he

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Speaker 1: finally retired from writing in nine teen thirty, around the

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Speaker 1: age of forty eight, he decided to devote his life

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Speaker 1: entirely to training horses at his stable in France, so

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Speaker 1: he stayed put there, settled there instead of traveling around

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Speaker 1: racing all the time, and he trained his own horses

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Speaker 1: and horses for other owners too, and he ended up

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Speaker 1: doing really well by it. But unfortunately he loses his

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Speaker 1: fortune once again when the Germans invade France in ninety

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Speaker 1: one and the Red Cross evacuates his family to the US.

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Speaker 1: He's home, so he's back home again. And black jockeys

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Speaker 1: had pretty much disappeared from the racing scene by the

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Speaker 1: early twenties, and Winkfield was looking for work and signed

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Speaker 1: up with the Works Progress Administration working on a road

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Speaker 1: crew and later had to work as a groom and

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Speaker 1: an assistant trainer for a living, So I mean a groom.

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Speaker 1: That's back to where he where he started as a kid. Finally, though,

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Speaker 1: he got to return to France in nineteen fifty three

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Speaker 1: and start up his operation, his racing and training stable again,

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Speaker 1: and he died in France March nineteen seventy four at

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Speaker 1: age one, again just bouncing back. It's so impressive that

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Speaker 1: he had he had it in him to keep going

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Speaker 1: and try again. Yeah. It was a phenomenal life and

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Speaker 1: a phenomenal career really and very impressive. But it took

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Speaker 1: Winkfield a long time to get recognition that he deserved

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Speaker 1: in his home country. In the US, there's a story

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Speaker 1: that's often told about he and his daughter attending the

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty one Kentucky Derby. Actually it's really sad. They

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Speaker 1: were invited to a Sports Illustrated event, a dinner at

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Speaker 1: the Brown Hotel in Louisville, but they almost got turned

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Speaker 1: away at the door by the doorman, and they had

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Speaker 1: to have him go check several times and insists that

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Speaker 1: they were guests and they were supposed to be there,

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Speaker 1: and they finally got in. But then even when they

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Speaker 1: did get there, they were essentially ignored by the people

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Speaker 1: at the dinner. The dinner kind of the people at

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Speaker 1: the dinner kind of came up to them and said

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Speaker 1: high and shook hands, and then they didn't talk to

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Speaker 1: anyone the rest of the time. His daughter said in

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Speaker 1: a two thousand two NPR Weekend Edition interview that the

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Speaker 1: only person who talked to us was a previous jockey

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Speaker 1: who had won the derby, and that was Roscoe Goose.

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Speaker 1: He was the only one who was friendly enough to

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Speaker 1: talk to us. Nobody else talked to us the whole time.

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Speaker 1: That's so sad and tragic and disappointing. I guess, very

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Speaker 1: that's the perfect way to describe it. Disappointing, And I

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Speaker 1: think you mentioned that. I thought this was a neat

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Speaker 1: counterpoint to it. Even though he's so disrespected at this event,

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Speaker 1: he said he still really enjoyed the race because that's

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Speaker 1: his element. He liked it, he liked being there. Again, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: from what I've read, he really enjoyed being at the

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Speaker 1: race and kind of didn't care that people had treated

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Speaker 1: him that way, or really didn't seem to care. I

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Speaker 1: guess because he had been through so much in his

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Speaker 1: life anyway, Transylvanian Alps probably puts things in perspective. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that would definitely change your perspective on the whole thing.

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Speaker 1: I think that he was more embarrassed and worried about

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Speaker 1: his daughter in that situation, necessarily than himself. But regardless,

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Speaker 1: things have changed a lot over the past decade. Wingfield

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Speaker 1: finally got inducted into the National Racing Hall of Fame

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Speaker 1: in two thousand four, and in two thousand five, the

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Speaker 1: House of representatives passed a bill honoring him, and in

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Speaker 1: two thousand Marlon St. Julian became the first African American

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Speaker 1: to ride in the Derby. Since there's been a few

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Speaker 1: since then, so maybe things are starting to change, starting

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Speaker 1: to get back to how they were at the end

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Speaker 1: of the eighteen hundreds. Yeah, it's interesting to think of

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Speaker 1: going backwards as progress, but I guess in a weird way,

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Speaker 1: that's kind of what it would be. Maybe. Thank you

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Speaker 1: so much for joining us for this Saturday classic. Since

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Speaker 1: this is out of the archive, if you heard an

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Speaker 1: email address or a Facebook U r L or something

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Speaker 1: similar during the course of the show, that may be

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Speaker 1: obsolete now. So here is our current contact information. We

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Speaker 1: are at History Podcast at how stuff Works dot com,

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Speaker 1: and then we're at Missed in the History. All over

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Speaker 1: social media that is our name on Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, Pinterest,

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Speaker 1: and Instagram. Thanks again for listening. For more on thiss

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Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, visit how staff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: M