Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central, not he ah Well, Hello,
Speaker 1: welcome to see P Time the only show. Let's hold
Speaker 1: the culture. Today we'll be discussing blacks in horse racing.
Speaker 1: Usually when you think of horse racing, the only black
Speaker 1: thing that comes to mind is the horse itself. It
Speaker 1: turns out many of the people riding them have been
Speaker 1: black too. Not to take anything away from those black horses, though,
Speaker 1: stay strong, my horse brothers. For many years, in the
Speaker 1: early days of organized horse racing, black jockeys were extremely
Speaker 1: common in the sport, partly because black people had a
Speaker 1: lot of experience taking care of horses during slavery, and
Speaker 1: partly because riding horses was the best way to prevent
Speaker 1: the police from stopping you for a broken tail light.
Speaker 1: Take the Kentucky Derby, the biggest event in the sport.
Speaker 1: It's so popular you've probably heard of it, even if
Speaker 1: you're not a gambling at it that blew his kids
Speaker 1: college money and lost the house on weekend races. Sorry,
Speaker 1: baby Whispering Willow was supposed to be a sure thing.
Speaker 1: In the first Kentucky Derby in eighteen seventy, thirteen out
Speaker 1: of fifteen jockeys were black and The winner of that
Speaker 1: race was Oliver Lewis. Oliver rode to victory on his
Speaker 1: horse Aristides. Strange name, but it was the eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: If you've got a black jockey, you got to at
Speaker 1: least give the horse an extra white name to balance
Speaker 1: things out. Despite its success, Lewis retired from racing the
Speaker 1: very same year he won the Derby, which is understandable.
Speaker 1: With the prize money he won, he could finally achieve
Speaker 1: the dream of every black man in eighteen seventy five,
Speaker 1: Kentucky moving out of Kentucky, and not only were black
Speaker 1: people the first to do it, but they were some
Speaker 1: of the best, like Isaac Burns Murphy seeing here thinking
Speaker 1: about racism. Probably Isaac was considered one of the greatest
Speaker 1: jockeys in history. He was the first person to win
Speaker 1: the Kentucky Derby three times, and his win record is
Speaker 1: still unmatched to this day. At Murphy was the first
Speaker 1: rider ever to be inducted into the Horse Racing Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame, which is the highest honor jockey can receive
Speaker 1: other than being told you're actually taller than I expected.
Speaker 1: But despite their success in the sport, black riders soon
Speaker 1: all but disappeared from horse racing, making it yet another
Speaker 1: thing that started out very black but became very white,
Speaker 1: much like Rock and Roll or Brooklyn. And that's because
Speaker 1: of the early nineteen hundreds, there was a concerted effort
Speaker 1: to push black jockeys out of the sport. White races
Speaker 1: engaged in harsh tactics both on and off the track.
Speaker 1: They would hit black riders with riding crops or run
Speaker 1: them into the rail. Two times Derby winner Jimmy Winkfield
Speaker 1: was even threatened by the Kool Klux Klan. The irony
Speaker 1: he in the KKK both love riding horses. If equestrianism
Speaker 1: can't trump hate, then I don't know what can. The
Speaker 1: harassment got so bad that in nineteen o four, Winkfield
Speaker 1: left the country to become a racing superstar in Russia.
Speaker 1: Do you know how bad it's got to get for
Speaker 1: a black man to move to Russia. They didn't even
Speaker 1: have black people over there back then, Although maybe that's
Speaker 1: the secret. I gotta get in earlier before they learn
Speaker 1: how to do racism. But soon enough, practically the only
Speaker 1: black jockeys you could find were those creepy little statues
Speaker 1: on rich white folks lawns between ninete and the year
Speaker 1: two thousand, not a single black jockey even raced in
Speaker 1: the Derby. Do you understand how long that is? It
Speaker 1: took all the way until the Baja men released who
Speaker 1: let the dogs out for a black person to compete again.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that the tour a related unless now
Speaker 1: that you're being crazy right now. One black rider who
Speaker 1: did make waves during those years was Cheryl White, the
Speaker 1: first licensed black female jockey in America. Cheryl started her
Speaker 1: career racing straight out of high school, which means she
Speaker 1: was the most influential black teenager on a horse until
Speaker 1: Little nos X came around, and she didn't need the
Speaker 1: help of Mola Cyrus's daddy. Just seventeen years old, White
Speaker 1: was already winning racist and gracing the cover of Jet magazine,
Speaker 1: which is incredibly impressive nowadays, most seventeen year old I
Speaker 1: know could only make the cover of Dumbass up to
Speaker 1: No Good magazine. I see you boys doing the vapor
Speaker 1: before school. I will snitch on you, watch man. So
Speaker 1: the next time you think of horse racing, think about
Speaker 1: the black jockeys that blazed the trail back in those
Speaker 1: early days. I'll just think Sea Biscuit. Well the guy
Speaker 1: who wrote Sea Biscuit or how much money you lost
Speaker 1: by not betting on Sea Biscuit? Maybe I'm not coming
Speaker 1: home for a little while. I'm so sorry. Well that's
Speaker 1: all the time we have for today. I'm Roy Wood Jr.
Speaker 1: And this has been CEP time. And remember what the
Speaker 1: culture uh? Because somebody help me put on this fake
Speaker 1: mustache as a gentleman named Knuckles swinging a body to
Speaker 1: get some money and I don't have it for him,
Speaker 1: and I gotta get the hell out of here. Come
Speaker 1: on there, okay, oh right, this location has been compromised.
Speaker 1: Come on, Jennifer Lewis The Daily Show with Trevor No
Speaker 1: Ears edition. Subscribe to The Daily Show on YouTube for
Speaker 1: exclusive contents, and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount Plus.
Speaker 1: This has been a Comedy Central podcast