Great Black Jockeys The Lives and Times of the Men Who Dominated America's First National Sport

From the Introducion, a Look Back at the First Kentucky Derby "Today will be historic in Kentucky annals as the first 'Derby Day' of what promises to be a long series of annual festivities, which we confidently expect our grandchildren a hundred years hence to celebrate in glorious centennial rejoicings." The confidence of the Louisville Courier-Journal would prove justified, to put it mildly. Now, 125 years hence and going into the twenty-first century, the Kentucky Derby is still one of the most moving public gatherings in America, in or out of sports. Its phenomenal on-site crowds of well over 150,000 peoplesomething baseball and football and basketball can't dream ofstill stand as one as they try to follow the local folks to the strains of "My Old Kentucky Home," a heart-tugging few minutes worth the race itself. At a venue almost void of physical charm, in a sport almost dead, one of the most magical moments in sports is still created aroundwhat? An idea? A tradition? Hype? The best the sport can offer? Better to leave it a mystery. At the same time, however, as the Derby enters a third century, it is many furlongs behind the original in one aspect: the representation of African Americans in important roles. The first Kentucky Derbyforeshadowed by the 1839 Kentucky sweepstakes matching Wagner and Grey Eaglebegan modestly. It was certainly no more impressive than America's first derby, day eleven years earlier in New Jersey, with its huge New York crowd, raving press coverage, and guaranteed participation by the major stables. Yet it held considerably more promise than that 1864 derby in Paterson. Unlike New Jersey and New York, Kentucky knew right away that it had bottled something precious, something that it had always possessed, its identity. It wasand to those who look closely, still issymbolized by the women of Kentucky, not only in the way that the states of the Old South crowned their reigning belles, but in the way that nation states coined a national woman, in the way that America, in eleven years, would put one on a pedestal in New York Harbor, even if she would spend the rest of her stone cold life trying to get down, proving that she wasn't from Kentucky. When the Courier-Journal's rival, the Louisville Commercial, reminded everybody, "Kentucky is proverbial the world over for its beautiful women as well as fine horses," the compliment was graciously accepted. And when the women turned out in force that Monday, they were really more than a measure of commercial success; they were the most important part of the event. Kentuckians saw not only their new derby but especially the women there as a rare and valuable expression of statewide unity and pride. "Until the close of this first day it has been the wont of our people to refer with glowing enthusiasm to the extraordinary aggregation of beauty which congregated at the Gray [sic] EagleWagner contest of thirty-five years ago," said the Courier-Journal. "It would seem that no impulse, in the long interval since, so served to draw together the people of Kentucky; but we now have another great event." That first WagnerGrey Eagle event had drawn about ten thousand people; so did this one. And just as editor William T. Porter had waxed on about the beauty of the ladies watching Cato ride Wagner to victory over the Kentucky-bred Grey Eagle, the Courier-Journal's man at the first Kentucky Derby couldn't stop once he had started on their daughters. He led off his report with the crowd, with the results of the race taking a back seat. It was made up of every element; but place aux dames et demoiselles before the pen shall treat of another feature. It is much, indeed, when attention and admiration may be diverted from the prime object which has gathered a gHotaling, Edward is the author of 'Great Black Jockeys The Lives and Times of the Men Who Dominated America's First National Sport', published 1999 under ISBN 9781400080700 and ISBN 1400080703.