The Prince of Jockeys

by Pellom McDaniels III

  In early November delegates from the western and eastern jockey clubs met in New York to decide the future of horse racing in America and the fate of its jockeys, including Murphy, who, over the last decade, had helped elevate the sport as the “leading amusement” and attraction of the American people.161 The western committee of the “Turf Congress” consisted of Colonel M. Lewis Clark of Louisville, General J. F. Robinson of the Lexington Association, and J. E. Brewster, secretary of the Washington Park Association. The eastern representatives were John Hunter, president of the American Jockey Club; Philip J. Dwyer, president of the Brooklyn Club; and J. G. K. Lawrence, secretary of the Coney Island Jockey Club. Central to the conversation were issues related to “racing rules, weights and forfeits.” Prior to the 4:00 meeting at the St. James Hotel, the delegates met at Lawrence's office to discuss their respective clubs’ needs.162 Three hours later, all the delegates met at the hotel to discuss what changes, if any, should be adopted. Besides discussions of how to improve racing, make rules more uniform, and regulate betting pools, the delegates were most concerned about weight requirements for jockeys. They feared losing quality jockeys who were getting older and thus had increasing difficulty keeping their weight under control. For instance, jockeys like Murphy, McLaughlin, Taral, and Donohue had to take extreme measures to lose weight, which weakened them considerably. As a result, the Turf Congress amended the weight requirements for jockeys (adding four pounds to the 1885 weight standards), based on the horse's age, distance of the race, and month of the year, with no allowance for geldings (see table 7.1).163 These changes made at the end of the 1888 season would have a positive effect on Murphy's career, and perhaps they played a part in his decision to ride in 1889.

  Isaac Murphy was unique among jockeys, both black and white. On quality horses, he dominated and won a majority of races; on average horses, he pushed them to their limits and helped them reach their full potential. A consummate professional, Murphy commanded respect not only from his fellow jockeys but also from the owners, who generally dictated how races should be run. On occasion, Murphy was allowed to run a race as he saw fit, based on his ability to judge the competition and place his horse in the right position. And although he worked in close proximity to the gambling set, he maintained his integrity and his reputation as an honest jockey and a man of exceptional morals, whose work ethic and intent to win could not be questioned. Friends like John Stoval, Anthony Hamilton, and young Pike Barnes looked to the seasoned jockey as an example of the kind of professional they aspired to be. When asked to name the best jockey in America, Hamilton commented, “I think that Isaac Murphy is the king of all of them. He is a wonderful judge of pace, and is always good at the finish.” Unfortunately, Hamilton's opinion of Murphy's ability in the saddle was overshadowed by the reporter's fascination with his interviewee's complexion, which he noted was “as black as the ace of spades.”164 As odd as it sounds, this was a common digression among white reporters seeking to denigrate the most educated and successful African Americans by forcing them into the canned definitions of blackness accepted by whites.

  Murphy understood the power of the written word and the clout wielded by the newspapermen who controlled the stories that appeared in print. It is possible that newspaper articles comparing the salaries of black and white jockeys created a rift between the two groups. Although we cannot be sure of the extent of Murphy's relationships with white rivals such as McLaughlin, Garrison, and Howard, we do know that they maintained a professional decorum that allowed them to compete on the racetrack without resorting to violence. Whether they socialized outside of the track or encouraged their colleagues in races in which they were not competing with one another is absent from nineteenth-century narratives of horse racing. White jockeys from the West were probably more amenable to working with black jockeys, who may have taught them how to ride or how to judge a horse's quality. In the Northeast, where ethnic tensions and racial hatred were more prevalent, white boys training to become jockeys were conditioned to be aggressive and not lose to colored boys. One of the most successful trainers was the abusive William “Father Bill” Daly, who was responsible for the careers of McLaughlin and Garrison. Under the guidance of Daly, they lived with the constant fear of being beaten if they failed to ride as instructed. In his book Black Maestro, Joe Drape suggests that Daly was a racist, which would certainly influence how the boys he trained felt about competing alongside black jockeys.165 How McLaughlin and Garrison felt about Murphy is not known, but there had to be an awareness that losing to the black jockey reduced their standing in Daly's eyes.

  With the changes initiated by the Turf Congress in November, which included improving the parks to satisfy the needs of the public and implementing a uniform set of rules for all clubs to adhere to, the 1889 season looked promising. In March, Isaac sat down for an interview with a correspondent from the New York Herald at his home in Lexington. The serious but candid jockey observed, “It is pleasant for me to recall the past. Its months and years, no matter what the future may have in store for me, will always be the happiest of my life. I look back to them with delightful memories and keen enjoyment. I would gladly live over the old days, as they were filled with the sunshine of success, in which few shadows ever fell.”166 Plainly, Isaac was shaping the story of his life as he wanted it recalled, without the ugly scars of slavery, abject poverty, death, and the insecurity of being alone in the world. Murphy's public persona was a deeply contemplative individual who was sure of himself and his purpose. There is no doubt that he was all this and more. However, only he and those who had known him since childhood understood the scope of his accomplishments over the course of his fourteen-year career. Toward the end of the interview, Isaac expressed some fondness for his humble beginnings, calling himself “a poor lad” and stating that “the money I earned by my riding was all I had to live on.” He continued:

  Since that time I have learned year after year, and my salary has been as much as that of a member of President Harrison's Cabinet. Outside of my salary Mr. Baldwin has given me $1,000 extra every time I have won the American Derby for him, and my extra mounts each year bring me on an average as much as my salary.

  I believe my percentage of wins to the number of mounts is the best on record in this country, as since my first race in 1875, I have ridden in 1,087 races, 411 of which I have won. The value of the stakes and purses I have no way to estimate, but as I have scored victories in almost every nook and corner of America and my name appears in all the lists of important races I know it must be an enormous sum.

  I am as proud of my calling as I am of my record, and I believe my life will be recorded as a success, though the reputation I enjoy was in the stable and in the saddle. It is a great honor to be classed as one of America's greatest jockeys.167

  Throughout the 1889 season, Murphy's legacy as one of the nation's greatest jockeys would be tested and substantiated in race after race. Between May and October, from St. Louis to New York, the “colored Archer” claimed dramatic victories riding for Baldwin, the Dwyer brothers, and others. In the one-mile Kentucky Handicap for a $3,078 purse, Murphy rode McClelland and Roche's Badge and won by a “short head” over Isaac Lewis on the Labold brothers’ Montrose.168 At the Washington Park meeting, he failed to win the American Derby on Milton's Young's Once Again but copped two wins and a portion of the money in six other races. Coincidentally, black Australian prizefighter Peter Jackson was in Chicago during the Washington Park meeting and was registered at the Grand Pacific Hotel. It is unknown whether Jackson and Murphy crossed paths, but in an interview a month later, Jackson mentioned the jockey in response to a question about prejudice against “boxers of his color in this country”:

  I have been kindly treated thus far in this country, particularly by the California Athletic Club, which is certainly as square an organization as exists anywhere in the world. John L. Sullivan has spoken unkindly of me several times, but I have never paid any attention to his remarks. He
has said that he would not meet me because of my color. I have never challenged him. I challenge nobody. If a white man declines to meet me before he is asked, why, it's none of my business. I consider Sullivan a great fighter and he probably has no peer, but he is unjust in abusing me. Color does not rub off, and I am sure that any of these fighters would not hesitate to go against a black man if he thought he could win. A fighter has no reason to refuse to meet another, even if his color is not the same. Why don't McLaughlin or Garrison refuse to ride in a race because Isaac Murphy has a mount in it? They have as much right to bar color as have the fighters. I am an athlete, and try to be a square man, but these fighters who are afraid to meet “niggers” make me very tired.169

  Jackson's commentary indicates an awareness of American race relations, whereby white men refused to compete with blacks for fear of losing in a head-to-head competition with an equally talented and determined black man. Jackson's observation was prophetic of the changing racial dynamics in American culture and the rise of Jim Crow segregation, which, in essence, served to save white masculinity and manhood from the perceived damage done by the accelerated achievements of African Americans. Individually and collectively, in the country that had enslaved their ancestors for more than 300 years, black men and women were living and prospering and, in fact, defining what it meant to be American. This was what Isaac Murphy did each time he stepped onto the racetrack.

  On July 8 J. B. Haggin telegraphed Murphy, who was still in Chicago, to request the jockey's presence at Monmouth Park, in New Jersey, to ride his chestnut colt Salvator in the Lorillard Stakes the next day. To entice Murphy to say yes, Haggin offered him $2,000 if he were victorious in the high-stakes race. The opportunity to ride for Haggin could lead to additional engagements to ride in other high-stakes races, so Murphy agreed and left Chicago on the midnight train.170 But why did Haggin want Murphy in the saddle when Salvator was already the favorite with James McLaughlin scheduled to ride him? Obviously, Haggin wanted to ensure victory, win the $18,000 purse, and beat the Dwyer brothers and other eastern owners, but there may have been another motivation.171

  The field in the Lorillard Stakes for three-year-olds included the Dwyer brothers’ Longstreet, D. D. Withers's Sensation and Faverdale, G. M. Rye's Long Dance, C. Littlefield's Jubal, A. J. Cassatt's Eric, D. J. McCarthy's Sorrento, and Haggin's two colts Kern and Salvator. The Daily Inter-Ocean reported on the controversial event:

  It is extremely unfortunate for the best interests of the turf that the race for the Lorillard Stakes to-day at Monmouth Park, won by Salvator, should have been run and won under circumstances so entirely distasteful to every one's idea of fair play. In the first place, more than one habitually conservative turfman kept asking all day long when they saw Kern's name as a probable starter for the Lorillard Stake: “What is Mr. Haggin's idea in starting him? What chance has he got? What is he in for?” And in the course of the race all these questions seemed assured, for at the end of the mile furlong, after lunging all over the course, Kern was deliberately taken by his rider Brant, diagonally across the track, cutting off as he did so Jubal, Eric, and Longstreet, causing all three to pull up so as to lose at least a dozen lengths, while it was said that Eric was cut on one of his legs. All this happened when Kern's stable companion, Salvator, was second, with clear going, and the object of it in many people's opinion was to make sure that none of the contending horses behind Salvator should have a chance to race up to him. Now this is not merely the view of the average $5 better, but is the actual beliefs of dozens of cold blooded horsemen.172

  Newspapers across the country reported only the results of the race, claiming that the California horse Salvator had conquered the East and that J. B. Haggin had won the Lorillard Stakes and the prize of $18,000. Few outside of New York and New Jersey had any idea what had actually transpired. Haggin's recruitment of Murphy thus made sense: the jockey's reputation for honesty somewhat guaranteed that nothing dishonest was going on, plus he had just arrived at the racetrack on the morning of the race.

  Taking advantage of the new weight standards implemented by the Turf Congress and the Dwyer brothers’ demand that he ride more frequently in the Northeast, Murphy posted his greatest number of mounts in 1889, with 195. And although he won only 58 races, he was in the money in more than half of the remaining 137 races. For Murphy, who was hoping to extend his career a few more years, the future looked promising. However, within one year, everything would begin to unravel, and he would watch powerlessly as the life he had worked so hard to attain was taken away.

  8

  In This Peculiar Country

  1890–1895

  In January 1890 most blacks in Kentucky, as well as in the rest of the nation, were aware of the growing tensions between blacks and whites over the so-called Negro question. The Kentucky Leader carried a front-page article explaining the reasoning behind a Senate bill proposing that blacks be forced to emigrate to Africa. Essentially, the bill's sponsor, Senator Mathew Butler, believed that blacks had become the political “foot-ball of contending factions and been made to suffer enough between the upper and nether millstones of opposing forces”—that is, white people. As a group, blacks could never find justice in the United States, according to Butler, because whites would never accept them as equals. In response, Republican senator George Frisbie Hoar of Massachusetts stood up for the rights of African Americans who had been born in the United States, had earned the rights and privileges of citizenship, and were not deserving of banishment to the “dark region of the dark continent,” as proposed by radical Democrats. Hoar continued:

  It was not, therefore, that the colored race could not be made fit for freedom that this proposition was made; but simply on the ground that the nature of things, or the nature of man, was such that, men of different races (and especially different colors) could not live together, in harmony and peace and freedom and honor under the laws of this Republic. If that was true, then the declaration of independence was a lie; then the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of every American State rested on rottenness; then the Christian religion, which taught humanity, equality, and that “God made of one blood all the nations of the earth,” but a solemn mockery, a solemn falsehood.1

  Senator Hoar's response was no doubt applauded by the African American community and its leaders, but the black press needed to speak out against schemes to disenfranchise blacks any further.

  Within the week, New York Age editor Timothy Thomas Fortune called for a national conference and convention in Chicago to galvanize black leadership into a singular body capable of challenging the dizzying effects of white supremacy. On January 25, 140 delegates representing twenty-one states and territories converged on Chicago to decide how to challenge the argument to send blacks out of the United States.2 In his address to the convention, Fortune stressed the need for individuals to commit to the program and inspire their communities to adhere to the aims espoused by the National Afro-American League. With a sense of urgency, Fortune argued:

  If we are true to ourselves, if we are true to our posterity, if we are true to our country, which has never been true to us, if we are true to the sublime truths of Christianity, we shall succeed—we cannot fail.

  We shall fight under the banner of truth. We shall fight under the banner of justice. We shall fight under the banner of the Federal Constitution. And we shall fight under the banner of honest manhood. Planting ourselves firmly upon these truths, immutable and as fixed in the frame works of social and political progress as the stars in the heavens, we shall eventually fight down opposition, drive caste intolerance to the wall, crush out mob and lynch law, throttle individual insolence and arrogance, vindicate the right of our women to the decent respect of lawless rowdies, and achieve at last the victory which crowns the labors of the patient, resourceful, and the uncompromising warrior.3

  Isaac Murphy was no doubt aware of the Chicago convention and the position taken by black leaders with regard to e
levating “Afro-Americans” through organization, agitation, and acts of dissent in the tradition of Crispus Attucks, Toussaint-Louverture, and Nat Turner. How he felt about these events can probably best be understood by his actions and choices. But it is important to remember that Lexington's black community was in many respects a community of achievers who were still somewhat protected from the growing racial animosities and institutional denials beginning to influence the outside world.

  By February 1890, Isaac was still contemplating whether to end his career in the saddle and make the natural transition to owner and trainer. Given his reputation as a man who was intelligent, hardworking, brave, honest, and modest, Isaac may have seemed out of place in jockeying, which had become rife with unrefined boys and a cartel of rough-and-tumble men. Isaac was more of a gentleman rider who had earned his fortune as a jockey. This was unusual in America, where the owners of Thoroughbred racehorses generally started out wealthy. Few, if any, of the wealthiest of owners had ever raced horses competitively, riding only as a form of transportation or on the occasional foxhunt.

  Yet there was such a thing as a gentleman jockey in American equine sports. Most of them were wealthy, athletic, adventuresome types who participated in trotting and steeplechase races, seeking the pleasures of riding a horse as a leisure activity and as a class-oriented form of masculine performance. In comparison, in the earliest accounts of equine sports in England, gentlemen jockeys were considered a disgrace to the upper classes; riding for money was not only uncouth but also beneath a man's station as part of the elite. A jockey was considered a laborer whose value was in his ability to guide a horse around a track in pursuit of victory (and monetary rewards) against his peers and the stopwatch. There were exceptions, of course, Fred Archer being a primary example of a jockey whose success in the saddle translated into other opportunities. Individual jockeys rarely interacted with their employers outside the liminal space of the racetrack. And though both were a part of the masculine ritual, they represented two separate groups, identities, and modes of existence.