Celebrating Black history: How Black jockeys shaped the Kentucky Derby

Of course, the horses always get a lot of attention, but you can’t overlook the fact that horse racing is a team sport and a horse’s jockey is vital for success.

The early days of the Derby were dominated by Black jockeys; in fact, 13 of the first 15 Derby-winning jockeys were black. Isaac Murphy, for example, won the Derby three times in that stretch and did it in just 11 appearances.

Despite their early success, those men and their stories are often forgotten in the history of the Run for the Roses.

Back in their day, jockey clubs began popping up all over the South with predominantly black Americans taking care of the horses and grounds.

After decades of being the best of the best at their sport, historians for the Kentucky Derby Museum said the Jim Crow and segregation era pushed black people out of horse racing.

Now in 2025, the Derby Museum is working hard to bring back these stories and remind people of the men who played a big role in one of the sport’s biggest races.

“What I often like to tell people, one of the most amazing things about that exhibition is, of course, we talked about the Kentucky Derby; we talk about thoroughbred racing, but Black Heritage in Racing is an exhibit that allows us to really show people how the history of this sport and this industry fits within the larger history of the United States,” said Chris Goodlett, senior director of curatorial and educational affairs for the Derby Museum. “Black Heritage in Racing does that for us. We look at the dominance of African American jockeys prior to the era of segregation.”

While there have been so many great Black jockeys to grace the track at Churchill Downs and win the Derby, it all started with one, Oliver Lewis.

Let’s take you back to 1875. Fifteen horses lined the starting gate at Churchill Downs for the first Kentucky Derby. HP McGrath had two horses in that race: Chesapeake, who was viewed as the better horse that race, and Aristides, who was viewed as the pacesetter.

But if you know anything about that first Derby, you know that pace-setting horse set the pace so well, they won the whole thing.

The jockey of Aristides, a man by the name of Oliver of Lewis.

Born in 1856 in Versailles, Lewis entered the first running of the Kentucky Derby at the age of 19.

Despite winning the inaugural race, Lewis never raced in the Kentucky Derby ever again and didn’t partake in many more races as a jockey after that. It wasn’t until the last few years that his great-grandchildren started to learn more about their history-making ancestor.

Despite being one and done in the run for the roses, Lewis’ legacy off the track is immense and cannot go understated.

“He put together some of the precursors to the elaborate racing charts that you might be familiar with the Daily Racing Form,” Goodlett explained. “He did some of the earliest work on that and some of the work he did. Eventually, as you go down, the line ends up being some of those elaborate racing charts that we see now. So even though he may not have had a long career as a jockey, he did do a lot of stuff within the industry that still have an impact.”

Lewis passed away in 1924 and was laid to rest in Lexington at African Cemetery No. 2 of West 7th Street.

You can learn more about the Kentucky Derby Museum’s Black Heritage in Racing Exhibit here.