The Prince of Jockeys

by Pellom McDaniels III

  By Christmas 1883, Corrigan had secured one of the best jockeys in the business, paying Isaac a retainer of $5,000 (more than $108,000 in 2013 dollars) to guarantee his services at predetermined race meets, while permitting him to ride in other races for other owners (provided they were willing to pay Isaac's fee of $25 per mount).80 In addition, based on the rules of the American Jockey Club, Murphy would receive the standard $10 for every losing race and $25 for every race won. (Other monetary incentives for jockeys included bonuses of $500 to $1,000 for winning certain stakes races that generated perhaps ten to twenty times that amount.) Based on the media coverage of the contract between Murphy and Corrigan, this was a significant development in horse racing and in relations between jockeys and owners. Turf, Field and Farm recognized the team of Murphy and Corrigan as a natural fit that would net the results desired by both parties: “The jockey Isaac Murphy has been engaged by Mr. E. Corrigan for the coming season. Murphy is one of the best on the turf. Mr. Corrigan's stable is made up of [the] finest material, and under the pilotage of Murphy a brilliant career for the Western turfman may be reasonably expected. Mr. Corrigan has spared no money in securing good stock, paying the highest prices, and it will be pleasant to see his liberality rewarded by many victories.”81 Isaac had ridden for Corrigan several times in the past, including piloting Pearl Jennings in a purse race at Coney Island in 1882, but now he would be wedded to the green jacket and white belt for much of the 1884 season. There is no way Corrigan could have known that by offering Isaac such a lucrative contract, he would help accelerate the inevitable changes taking place in horse racing, most of which were already unfolding in the Northeast.

  Indicating the changing culture of horse racing, an editorial in the January 1, 1884, issue of the Springfield Republican warned that the influence of “crooked men” could ruin the potentially honorable careers of promising young white jockeys. Similarly, horse farmers were beginning to demand white boys as riders for their stables, relegating black jockeys to positions as grooms or stable boys based on the belief that “though handy about horses, [black boys] are as a rule too ignorant to learn anything but the merest handiwork.”82 This attitude, along with Grover Cleveland's election as the first Democratic president since the end of the Civil War, represented significant changes. Horse racing and the horse industry had traditionally depended on black labor, but what had been considered “nigger work” less than a decade ago was now attracting white boys and men who wanted to ride the prized Thoroughbreds in high-stakes races.83 The mass immigration of Irish into the United States, especially New York, significantly increased the number of white jockeys; poverty and degradation made these men hungry for any opportunity to work. Their whiteness helped European immigrants construct an American identity; they forged relationships with other identifiable whites to deny racial “others” access to power. At the same time, relationships were being forged between white capital and white labor to deny blacks access to traditional occupations. Indeed, jobs that had been African Americans' primary sources of income and identity were now tied to the expanding marketplace and the burgeoning consumerism developing in the late nineteenth century. Isaac's contract with Corrigan and the high salary he was able to command, although a reflection of his abilities as a jockey and a signifier of his character as a man, would eventually lead to black jockeys' exclusion from the sport they had helped build into a billion-dollar business.

  As winter turned to spring and Isaac began to prepare for the upcoming season, the popular jockey found himself in somewhat of a bind. Married life had been good to him, and his swollen figure was an indicator of his embrace of leisure and domesticity. Thus, Isaac's main concern was how to make the lighter weights endorsed by the American Jockey Club at the end of the 1883 season. To lose the twenty to thirty pounds he had gained before the season opened in Nashville in May, he created his own training and conditioning program. In an 1885 interview Isaac discussed his “rigorous course of training” and noted that most people “would hardly think it, the best riders in the country—men who earn from $5000 to $10,000 every summer—frequently go to bed hungry every night for weeks.” Murphy described the toll the process of “reducing his flesh” took on the mind and body, describing it as “a constant feeling of weakness and sickness which never leaves one except during sleep.”84 During the early spring, his daily routine included taking three- to five-mile walks dressed in layers of clothing to shed pounds through perspiration. His diet was limited to fruit and small bits of meat. This regimen had an adverse effect on his immune system, making him vulnerable. Like most jockeys, Isaac was engaged in a constant fight against his body's natural inclination to grow and mature. Yet Isaac was a professional, and considering that a year earlier, in preparation for a race in Chicago, he had reduced “from 124 pounds to 111 pounds in 36 hours,”85 Murphy no doubt had his weight under 115 pounds by the beginning of the 1884 season.

  In March 1884, in the Rocky Mountain News, Corrigan revealed some of his reasons for hiring Murphy:

  I have engaged Isaac Murphy to ride for me because I have found out by experience that it is of very little use to have good or fair horses without having skill and honesty in the saddle. I believe I was punished by riders last season as much as any man in the country, and I don't intend to suffer in the same way again if I can help it. Good riders are scarce and high priced, but I made up my mind to get a good one, and got one of the best—some people think the best. My opinion is that I have as good a rider as anybody. I have my stable heavily engaged for the entire season.86

  This was proof that honesty and hard work could pay off. Still, it was the amount of money Corrigan was willing to pay Murphy that would become an issue for the white boys looking to compete against him.

  The same issue became a source of contention in professional baseball. In 1883 the Toledo Blue Stockings’ black catcher Moses Fleetwood Walker was reportedly earning $2,000 per season (about $43,000 in today's dollars). This displeased a number of fans and players, who felt a white ballplayer would be more deserving of that salary. One of the most outspoken against black competition in the league was the manager of the Chicago White Stockings, Adrian “Cap” Anson. Anson's first attempt to draw the color line in baseball fizzled when his own salary from the gate receipts was threatened after he refused to play against the Toledo team on August 10, 1883. Anson eventually allowed his team to play, but he vowed not to play against any team with “a nigger in.”87 Despite his reputation in sporting circles as a seasoned professional who was “magnificent” behind the plate, Walker became the focus of the Southern media's assault on black labor and businesses that took good money away from capable white boys—who, in baseball, were mostly immigrants or poor whites from the margins of society.88 Walker even received death threats; he was warned that if he played in a scheduled game against the Richmond, Virginia, team, he would suffer at the hands of “75 determined men who have sworn to mob” him if he insisted on playing with white men.89 It should come as no surprise that the manager of the Toledo team eventually succumbed to the pressure: at the end of the 1884 season, Walker was released from the team. He would eventually find work with other teams, but by the end of the 1880s, the door had been shut on black baseball players in the professional leagues. This foreshadowed the situation in horse racing, as black jockeys began to be shut out by the white boys who wanted to claim their salaries.

  Some owners of Thoroughbreds, including Corrigan and E. J. Baldwin, were slow to submit to the idea that black jockeys were a detriment to their stables. Therefore, in the spring of 1884, Isaac Murphy was ready to fulfill his contractual obligations to Corrigan and headed to the Nashville meeting, scheduled to begin May 1. The state of Tennessee had enacted a law segregating passenger trains, so it is possible that this affected Isaac and Lucy's journey. The couple's impression of Nashville is unknown, but they likely recognized the city's Fisk University as an important institution for the educational advancement of black people; it had bee
n one of the original schools founded to educate former slaves and their children. The Murphys may have taken a tour of the campus and perhaps heard the famed Fisk Jubilee Singers perform at some point during their stay in the city. In later years, the couple may have crossed paths with a new arrival to the city, a young W. E. B. DuBois, who received a scholarship to attend Fisk in 1885 and, after graduating in 1888, would eventually earn a doctorate in history from Harvard University, the first African American to do so.

  At the Nashville meeting, in a field that included his friend John Stoval, Isaac finished second on A. C. Franklin's three-year-old bay filly named Pansy. The next day, in the Fairview Stakes on Corrigan's Pearl Jennings, Isaac beat the field by a length, winning $700 for his employer.90 He picked up another mount for Walnut Grove Stables and rode Boulevard to a sixth-place finish, failing to collect a portion of the $250 purse. On the fifth day, in his final race at Nashville, Isaac finished second on Pearl Jennings in the Kirkman Stakes, collecting $100. At the end of the meeting, the Murphys climbed aboard the train bound for Lexington, where the Kentucky Association meeting would begin on May 8 and Isaac was scheduled to ride in the Distillers’ Stakes on Corrigan's bay gelding Freeland.

  The weather was mild and pleasant on the first day of the Lexington races, but the track was muddy after a flurry of rain showers, which no doubt added to the lushness of the foliage surrounding the track. In the second race of the day, Murphy rode Freeland, a horse he would make famous in 1885 by winning against Miss Woodford at Monmouth Park. After a beautiful start, Murphy took Freeland into the lead and maintained control throughout to win by a length and a half. In the third race of the day atop J. and J. Swigert's Silvio, Isaac again demonstrated control of his charge, guiding him over the wire to win the $300 purse by a length. Over the remainder of the meeting, Isaac had two more mounts but no victories, earning somewhere between $60 and $80 for his services. By then, Isaac's mind had to be focused on the high-stakes races waiting for him in Louisville, where winning carried a little more prestige and earning power.

  The spring meeting of the Louisville Jockey Club commenced on Friday, May 15, and the central focus was the Kentucky Derby, the race that had become the pride of Kentucky horsemen. The Kentucky Live Stock Record reported the growing importance of the race among the Bluegrass elite: “Every year the interest in the Kentucky Derby increases, and the desire to win also increases with breeders and owners, until it is looked upon as a mark of merit for the colt who is fortunate enough to bear off the Blue Ribbon of the Turf. More interest clusters in and about this race than any other in America, and we have heard a number of prominent breeders and turfmen say that they would rather win the Kentucky Derby than any two events upon the American turf.”91 This article could have been merely well-planned boosterism, designed to attract more fans to the spring classic, but clearly, the Louisville Jockey Club's mission to make the Kentucky Derby the premier event in America was beginning to succeed. The race was taking on a life of its own, and anyone associated with a win at the Kentucky Derby was guaranteed a degree of fame and prestige that was presumably unavailable at other association tracks—at least, this was the case in Kentucky.

  For the 1884 running of the Kentucky Derby, Isaac had been hired by William Cottrill of Mobile, Alabama, a former captain in the Confederate army. His mount, the three-year-old colt Buchanan, would turn out to be more trouble than anyone anticipated. Isaac had ridden Buchanan before and had been thrown by the fiery horse. Prior to the race, Cottrill's trainer, William “Bill” Bird, had trouble saddling the ill-tempered colt, whose history as a “bad actor” and flat-out rebel was appropriate, considering his owner's history.92 Bird did everything he could to coax the horse into submission and eventually got the animal bridled and saddled. Reluctant to rile the horse further, Isaac declined to ride Buchanan in the Derby, fearing for his life. Cottrill warned Murphy of the possible consequences of not complying with their agreement, but only after Cottrill complained to the judges and they threatened to suspend him from the entire Louisville meeting did he finally agree to ride.93 The spirited horse was outfitted with blinkers to reduce the distractions that might cause him to become “fractious” and uncontrollable.94 Isaac mounted Buchanan and trotted him out to the post, keeping a tight grip on the reins to keep the horse from bolting.

  The key to riding a horse like Buchanan, older trainers would say, was to accept that you cannot control an animal with that much spirit. Jockeys sometimes used up too much energy trying to gain control, and the horse used up too much energy trying to resist—a contest for domination that benefited neither. In fact, a horse like Buchanan—one that was so anxious he seemed ready to burst into a million pieces—was exactly the kind of horse a jockey wanted to have under him. The key was to guide the spirited horse in the right direction using the reins like a rudder on a boat. Isaac knew that to ride Buchanan successfully, he would have to guide him in the right direction: straight ahead.

  On May 16, 1884, an estimated 15,000 spectators folded into the stands, piled into the infield, and queued around the track to watch the tenth running of the Kentucky Derby. Lucy was watching in the stands, likely with her sister and other jockeys’ wives, as Isaac prepared to ride for his future and his life. After three attempts at a start, the field of nine horses got away, with Buchanan trailing the pack. The pace was killing, and the jockeys were anxious to keep their distance from the leader so as to hide their intention to outstrip the front-runner at the end. At the halfway point, Isaac moved up with Buchanan, still under a heavy pull, advancing into striking distance of the leaders. At the one-mile mark, McLaughlin began whipping Bob Miles to press for the lead, and the rest of the field responded by picking up the pace, with Loftin, Audrain, and Buchanan running even. As the group entered the final stretch, Isaac gave Buchanan “his head, and in a half a dozen strides he had cut down Admiral and came home in a big gallop, an easy winner by two lengths.”95 Even after the race had ended, the spirited horse wanted to keep running. Skill, not luck, was responsible for Buchanan's win, as Isaac demonstrated his unparalleled ability to ride horses of various temperaments and dispositions. Murphy had won his first Kentucky Derby, using the knowledge and know-how of a true professional to achieve success under difficult circumstances.

  Isaac won six other races at Louisville: the Dixiana Stakes, Kentucky Oaks, Clark Stakes, Merchant's Stakes, Tennessee Stakes, and Moet and Chandon Champagne Stakes. He also finished second in four races, third in one, and sixth in one. His contract with Corrigan had paid off for both parties: Corrigan's two best horses, Modesty and Freeland, had run like champions, each winning two stakes races, and Isaac had garnered the attention he deserved. The pair would continue their winning ways at Latonia, where Isaac guided Corrigan's Bonnie Australian to a purse race victory and won three other races for three different owners. Then, at St. Louis, Isaac once again shone on Freeland, the star of the Turf Cash Handicap with a two-length victory over T. M. Berry's John Henry. And at the inaugural meeting of the Washington Park Club, Corrigan's Modesty, with Isaac aboard, dominated the competition, winning the American Derby and close to $13,000 in stakes and purse money. This was twice the amount won by E. J. Baldwin, whose Verano generated $5,465 (this was important, because Baldwin and Corrigan competed to employ the best jockeys to ride their prized horses). Isaac also won the Kenwood Stakes, worth $3,855.96 As a gesture of appreciation for his professionalism and ability, Corrigan renamed his two-year-old colt Harry White after his prized jockey—a rare occurrence, but no doubt an honor Isaac had earned.

  Meanwhile, Lucy traveled with her husband and renewed friendships established at earlier meetings from Louisville to St. Louis to Chicago. Chances are that if the Murphys stayed with local families during the various races, Lucy would write letters to their hostesses, thanking them for their hospitality and generosity. This was proper etiquette for nineteenth-century women pursuing a middle-class lifestyle. Lucy would have learned theses lessons in Frankfort, from the wh
ite families she worked for or from Meta Hunt-Reynolds during the brief time they lived at Fleetwood Farm. Or Lucy might have read Florence Hartley's The Ladies Book of Etiquette, and Manual of Politeness for guidance on how to lead a proper social life, how to throw dinner parties, and how to dress for particular events and occasions. The manual also covered how to conduct oneself on the street or in a ballroom setting, “polite deportment” and good health habits, and how to deal with one's servants.97 Indeed, such books would have been invaluable to both Isaac and Lucy, who saw themselves as members of the colored elite and took pride in that position and what it entailed.

  As the racing season shifted to the Northeast, Isaac continued his winning ways, especially in high-stakes races with thousands of dollars, individual pride, and regional standing on the line. At Saratoga Springs, Isaac rode Corrigan's Pearl Jennings, Modesty, and Freeland to victory in a number of stakes and purse races. He also rode for several other owners. In addition to attracting the attention of horse racing's elite, Isaac was being noticed by other jockeys, some of whom resented his ability to earn more money while riding in fewer races. One of Isaac's main rivals was Ed “Snapper” Garrison, a daring white jockey whose aggressive style of riding included whipping his horses relentlessly. This was the polar opposite of Murphy's polished, reserved, gentlemanly style, which looked effortless to those unaware of the degree of control he had. Though their lives ran parallel for a while, as jockeying developed into a lucrative profession, Murphy's and Garrison's worlds would eventually collide in the social, political, and economic milieu that would characterize the final decade of the nineteenth century and most of the twentieth.