Black Americans dominated horse racing in the nineteenth century, and among them, Isaac Burns Murphy is widely regarded as the greatest jockey of all time.
The assertion is a reasonable one. Officially, Isaac won 530 out of his 1,538 races, or about 35%. His victories included the Kentucky Derby three times, the Latonia Derby five times, and four of the first five American Derby races.
Isaac would claim that his victory percentage was actually higher, about forty-four percent. Whichever it was, the mark has yet to be surpassed.
Born in Frankfort, Kentucky, on New Year's Day in 1861, Isaac was the son of a formerly enslaved man who served in the Union Army during the Civil War, ultimately dying in battle or sometime shortly after the war, though it's not clear how. It's also unclear how the loss impacted Isaac over the years; he didn't write much about his personal life.
Isaac's upbringing was steeped in the sights, smells, and rhythms of the stables at nearby Lexington, a city synonymous with horse racing, the "Horse Capital of the World" as it was known. He rode for the first time at the age of 13. A year later, at 14 and weighing less than 95 pounds, Isaac competed for the first time at Churchill Downs. He finished last in that race. It was an inauspicious and humbling start, but certainly not one that would define his career.
By his early twenties, Isaac's victories began to amount. And praise came with them. One reporter who observed a race said that Isaac "is one of the best jockeys in America. He is very observant during the progress of a race, keeps a sharp lookout for danger, is quick to perceive the weak points of an adversary, and prompt to take advantage of them. He has a steady hand, a quick eye, a cool head, and a bold heart."
Fame would come with the victories, too. Yet, Isaac remained humble. He spoke little of his victories and, though literate, seldom wrote about his life or struggles, leaving future generations with few personal accounts of his life. One can speculate that Isaac's quiet demeanor was a way of maintaining focus and protecting himself from the public pressures of being a black celebrity in post-Civil War America. For he certainly dealt with much racism, jealousy and envy.
Unfortunately, Isaac died of pneumonia in 1896 at just 36 years old, cutting short a life and career that had already reshaped horse racing.
Sources:
Isaac Murphy, head-and-shoulders portrait, in jockey uniform, facing left. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2005690025/>.
"Isaac B. Murphy." National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, https://www.racingmuseum.org/hall-of-fame/jockey/isaac-b-murphy
“Isaac Burns Murphy.” Kentucky Horse Park, https://kyhorsepark.com/explore/isaac-burns-murphy/
MURRAY, ROBERT P., and Pellom Mc-Daniels. The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, vol. 113, no. 1, 2015, pp. 93–96. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24641247. Accessed 11 Nov. 2024.
Wikimedia Commons, Wikimedia Foundation, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IsaacMurphy.jpg
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