From March to May, Isaac trained for his opening race in Lexington at the Kentucky Association meeting. Whether or not he wanted to admit it, the older he got, the harder it was to lose weight through the routine of wasting and purging. The five- and ten-mile walks in heavy sweaters and the long rides on horseback without the proper diet could be dangerous. A dehydrated body was vulnerable to fatigue, as well as kidney failure and other chronic illnesses. Nevertheless, with his weight under 115 pounds by the first of May, Isaac was able to fulfill his contract with Gideon and Daly; he also rode for Kentucky distiller James E. Pepper.
On the second day of the meeting, in his first race of the season, Isaac took Pepper's La Joya to victory on the muddy track. According to the Live Stock Record, Isaac showed a flash of his past brilliance as he sat on the “game little Hindoo filly and rode home a comparatively easy winner” in the Melbourne Stud Stakes.116 The Cleveland Gazette recognized that “his riding was superb and was characterized by one of his old time finishes.”117 In his three races, Isaac placed first in two and second in one, helping Pepper's stable collect $6,410 in winnings. For all who paid attention, this was the Isaac Murphy they knew—beating back the challengers with a calm consistency that was the ultimate sign of confidence. If the Lexington races represented the first act of his final play, surely Churchill Downs was the second act, which promised high drama and suspense.
Isaac and Lucy traveled by train through the familiar Kentucky countryside to Louisville. Unlike Lexington, the weather in Louisville was “delightful,” and the crowd was as attractive as ever.118 The nineteenth running of the Kentucky Derby on May 10 was on the minds of everyone on the grounds, including Isaac, who was scheduled to ride Pepper's Mirage.119 Unfortunately, three days of rain put the track in bad condition, making it heavy and sloppy. This would be Isaac's eleventh Kentucky Derby. In his last outing in 1891, on Dudley Allen's Kingman, he had claimed his third victory and the prestige of being the first to do so. All in attendance knew that the proven veteran of the turf should not be taken lightly, even though Pepper's chestnut three-year-old colt did not impress the spectators. But with only five other horses entered, Isaac had a chance, albeit one the oddsmakers put at 12:1.120
An estimated 30,000 people filled the stands and the infield at Churchill Downs. It was a clear day, and a bouquet of colorful hats worn by the women in attendance looked like a festival of spring flowers. Lucy was no doubt present in the stands. This had been the scene of many glorious wins for her husband. In the infield, wagons, carts, and buggies jammed the space, where there were lively activities in between races: games for children and music to satisfy the restless. When the time came, all eyes focused on the track, anticipating the beginning of the Derby.121
Carrying an extra seven pounds, Isaac mounted Mirage in the paddock area and was guided to the track, where he galloped to the starting line to await the beginning of the race. Anxiety was high among both horses and jockeys, but Mirage was less anxious than the impatient Lookout, the favorite. As the jockeys and horses lined up, the eyes of the spectators turned toward the starter, Pettingill, who watched the field closely before dropping the flag. The six competitors flew down the straightaway and into the first turn, with Lookout and Linger taking the lead and Mirage a close third. After the first mile, Lookout took command of the race, and Linger dropped out of contention. Working on an outclassed Mirage, Isaac slipped from third to fifth behind Plutus, Boundless, and Buck McCann. As the field entered the final quarter, the order remained the same. Isaac claimed an inglorious fifth place, beating only Linger to the wire. There would be no fourth Derby victory for Isaac.
During the Louisville meeting, Isaac took additional mounts, including a May 11 start in the Hurstbourne Stakes for two-year-olds on W. O. Scully's bay filly Philopena. One week later, on May 18, he rode J. Hannigan and Company's bay colt King Charley in a purse race worth $500. He had reduced to 113 pounds, dropping 5 pounds since his second-place finish on Philopena. On King Charley, he also finished in the money, taking third place. This would be his last appearance as a jockey at Churchill Downs.
From Louisville, Isaac traveled to Covington and the Latonia Jockey Club meeting, where he was scheduled to ride for W. H. Landeman in the Ripple Stakes. Isaac had had some memorable wins at Latonia, including the Hindoo Stakes for three-year-olds on Leonatus in 1883. On May 27, on a heavy track and riding against less experienced jockeys, Isaac took first prize on Landeman's chestnut colt Walnut.122 There was no doubt that he could still ride. The difference was that other jockeys—some of whom Murphy had coached—had caught up to his ability.
Isaac then traveled by train from Covington to St. Louis, Missouri, where he and Lucy had a chance to visit with friends and acquaintances. The St. Louis Jockey Club meeting provided Isaac an opportunity to ride John Cooper, a crowd favorite, in two races. In the first one, they finished fourth in a field of nine, to the disappointment of the spectators. Two days later, on June 15, they had a chance to redeem themselves. In the second race of the day (worth $400), Isaac (weighing in at 113 pounds) brought John Cooper to the line again. After a fair start, the horses and their jockeys seemed determined to make a race of it. For four furlongs they challenged for control. Down the stretch, Isaac took the lead and willed John Cooper over the finish line, edging out Eling David for first place.123 Five days later, on June 20, he took the first prize of $1,000 in the St. Louis Brewing Association Stakes, winning easily on St. Joe.124 His St. Louis trip had been a success.
After leaving St. Louis a few days later, Isaac and Lucy arrived in Chicago to prepare for the annual Washington Park meeting beginning on June 24. As they had done on previous occasions, the Murphys either stayed with friends in the city or found accommodations at the Sheridan or Grand Pacific Hotel. Surprisingly, despite winning four American Derbies, Isaac was not the favorite in the race. Instead, that honor went to his rival Ed “Snapper” Garrison, who would be riding J. E. Cushing's impressive brown colt Boundless. For Isaac, who would be riding the unproven St. Croix, the $50,000 race had important financial incentives: he would receive $8,000 for a win, $7,000 for finishing in second place, or $3,000 for finishing in third.
On the day of the race, the Live Stock Record reported that H. P. McGrath's Aristides, the great “Little Red Horse,” had died in St. Louis at the age of twenty-one.125 Under the guidance of the great black jockey Oliver Lewis and the great black trainer Ansel Williamson, Aristides had won the inaugural Kentucky Derby in 1875. Fourteen-year-old Isaac had attended that meeting with his mentor Eli Jordan. Chances are that Isaac thought about Aristides and his fine qualities that day and remembered the chestnut colt's run in the first Kentucky Derby.
On the day of the American Derby, Isaac's former employer Ed Corrigan disrupted the routine weigh-in session when he had Monk Overton arrested for breach of contract, claiming the jockey had not honored his commitment to ride for Corrigan should he have a horse for the Derby. According to several newspaper accounts, Overton had promised to ride Ramapo for Gideon and Daly, either forgetting or disregarding his legally binding agreement with Corrigan. Unfortunately, he was removed from the Washington Park grounds and suspended from the meeting. With Overton unavailable, Dave Gideon offered the mount to Charley Thorpe, an up-and-coming jockey that the Scroggan brothers employed.126
After weighing in, Isaac and St. Croix made their way to the track, where 75,000 fans crowded the stands and the infield. As the field of competitors crossed in front of the grandstand, cheers and applause went up. After dozens of attempts to start the race, the frustrated Pettingill stepped down from his stand and confronted the jockeys on the field. In a fit of absolute frustration, he identified four jockeys—Lambley, Garrison, Taral, and Dogget—whose persistent efforts to jump-start the race were causing the problem. He fined them each $250 and warned them against any further disruption of the Derby.127
By the time the flag finally dropped, it was six o'clock in the evening, and the crowd was restless and tens
e.128 Taking the lead, Ingomar and Don Alonzo sprinted to the inside rail. Behind them and still trying to gain position were G. W. Johnson, Chorister, Aldebaran, Ramapo, and Oporto. In the final group of eight horses bunched up in the rear were Murphy on St. Croix, along with Garrison on Boundless. For much of the race, both Murphy and Garrison laid back, waiting for an opportunity to charge into the lead. After a mile, the field shifted dramatically, with St. Leonards taking the lead in front of Clifford. By the time the horses entered the final turn, the jockeys had their horses ready to close the gap at a devil's pace. But before Isaac could get St. Croix out of the bunch, Garrison broke away from the group into the middle of the track and began to work his whip on Boundless. At the eighth pole, Garrison had gained two lengths on the field and was striding Boundless home to an eight-length victory. Isaac never got St. Croix out of the pack and finished in ninth place. In a postrace interview, he expressed his disappointment: “I thought [for] sure I could get St. Croix up one, two, [or] three…. It galled me terribly. I was to get $8,000 if I won.”129 We don't know for sure whether the other jockeys conspired to keep Murphy from finishing in the money, but it's a possibility.
Years after Murphy's death, an article appeared in Abbott's Monthly that might explain what kept him from victory. Describing a race in which he and Murphy had been the focus of foul play, a former jockey revealed how Murphy could have been prevented from making a run for the grand prize:
I was a much younger rider than he was, and he seemed to take a liking to me. Might have been because I told him of times when other jockeys were trying to frame the race against him.
You see, Murphy would never agree to pull a horse or enter into a deal to throw a race; nobody can ever say that about him. So finally, some jockeys would get together and plan to shut him out entirely in a race.
On the way to the paddock one day, I muttered to Murphy that something was about to happen in that race. It was a big field, and the time was well-chosen for any trick.
Following his usual custom, Murphy laid off the pace. Going into the backstretch he had a good position in the outside about half-length behind me, and I was laying the same distance back of the first horse. Behind us were twelve others bunched closely.
…As we come near the three quarter pole, Murphy begins to move forward, but just when he is passing me, two more horses come up on the outside and start bearing him in. The jockey inside me pulls out a little ahead.
In a flash Murphy catches the drift and swings his right foot quickly into the neck of the horse closing him in. This throws the horse off stride back into the other one, and in that instant we went on out of the jam.
…They had picked the right spot where the judges couldn't get a clear view, but the funniest part was the boy never reported his horse being kicked by Murphy.130
These kinds of narratives help explain how white jockeys colluded to keep black jockeys from winning the big purses and thus denied them future opportunities to sign lucrative contracts.
After the Washington Park meeting, rumors spread that Isaac would be offered the opportunity to ride Boundless in the Realization Stakes at Sheepshead Bay, because Garrison had had a falling out with Cushing.131 Garrison was unhappy that he hadn't been paid more for the American Derby win; he received whatever had been agreed to before the race. Perhaps Garrison had promised a few jockeys a portion of his winnings (for their help in tying up Murphy), and the payoffs cost him more than expected. As it turned out, Isaac didn't ride in the Realization Stakes. Instead of heading to New York, he stayed in Chicago, taking mounts from the Flash Stables and Ed Corrigan and finishing second and third, respectively, over a three-day period.132 After collecting his earnings and paying his debts, Isaac and Lucy boarded the eastbound train to New York for engagements at Monmouth Park and Saratoga.
From July 7 to August 8, Isaac raced at Monmouth Park, Saratoga, and the Brooklyn Jockey Club, showing in five races and finishing out of the money in a dozen others. Not until he returned west to Chicago for the Hawthorne Park fall meeting in October would his number of mounts increase, as well as his income. From October to December, Isaac finished in the money nineteen times: two first-place, ten second-place, and seven third-place finishes. By year's end, it was clear he had experienced a sharp reduction in the number of races run and in the number of big stakes victories.
Whether by coincidence or as a result of the growing animosity between white and black jockeys, there was a surge in the number of images depicting black jockeys as stereotypical Sambos and coons, especially by printmakers Nathaniel Currier and James Merritt Ives. Their Darktown series of lithographs perpetuated the common stereotypes associated with African Americans—in particular, the unsavory and uncivilized representations of African American athletes and politicians. There is no doubt that the purpose of these lithographs and other artistic representations was to humiliate and to erase any sense of humanity, manhood, and pride that black men derived from their occupations. More important, the images helped white men cope with the fact that the myth of white supremacy was jeopardized each time a black man succeeded. Unfortunately, the series of lithographs and dozens of advertisements lampooned black jockeys as idiotic buffoons, incapable of achieving anything that could be considered significant or important. These images influenced how black jockeys were later depicted in American history—as inconsequential footnotes to the sport of horse racing.
Trainers were also considered fair game. In the July 22, 1893, edition of the Live Stock Record, Albert Cooper was depicted as a hapless Negro who lacked the capacity to be a celebrated trainer of Thoroughbred horses:
When Albert Cooper…was training for E. J. Baldwin, some years back he asked the latter along in the fall for a balancing of accounts. Cooper had, of course, drawn money on account, and needed the balance due him. Baldwin acquiesced, and taking out his memorandum book and pencil began to figure. After some minutes he said: “Well, Albert, there was so much due you, and you have drawn so much. Difference in my favor, $82 overdraft. In other words, you owe me $82.” Cooper's face was a study at this. He figured that there were several hundred dollars due him, and here he was in debt $82? Finally he said to Baldwin: “Gib me de book and pencil, boss.” Taking them he imitated Baldwin's motions of addition and subtraction, pored over them for awhile and handed them back with: “Dat's all right boss. Aught for aught, figger for a figger, all for the white man; nuffin for [the] nigger.” As Cooper can neither read nor write, the humorous aspect of the episode and its mirthful echoes have not died away yet.133
From all accounts, Cooper was as shrewd a trainer as he was a businessman. The fact that Baldwin was known to underpay his farm and stable workers was likely the origin of the story, embellished to denigrate Cooper. Besides being another example of the media's perpetuation of stereotypes, the story undermined Cooper's history as a successful trainer for owners such as Theodore Winters and J. B. Haggin.134 Cooper eventually developed his own public stable, where he trained horses for several owners, as well as his own stable of Thoroughbreds, some of which cost him upward of $15,000.135 Clearly, Cooper (like Isaac and many others) was no buffoon, but that did not stop the caricatures and iconography that removed all humanity from black subjects. Something more ominous was happening to horse racing that neither Cooper nor Murphy could have anticipated.
On December 18, less than two weeks after Isaac and Lucy returned to their home in Lexington, the Baltimore Sun reported that he had announced his intent to retire as a professional rider. The article speculated on the reason for this decision: that Isaac had “become fat in the last two years, and any attempted reduction in flesh would be a menace to health and even life. Being independent in fortune, he feels like retiring and spending the remainder of his days in ease.”136 Whether Isaac had alluded to his retirement in Chicago or whether the story was fabricated to elicit a response from him is not known. However, we do know that the Live Stock Record refuted both Isaac's retirement and his weight problem: “Murph
y is now at his home in this city and his health is greatly improved.” What is more, Isaac is “lighter than he has been for several years. He will most likely ride in the East next season.”137 If he had planned to retire from racing before the Baltimore Sun article appeared, Isaac's sense of pride and dignity may have caused him to change his mind. He was his own man, and he would retire when he was ready to do so.
On January 4, 1894, the most “prominent horsemen in the East” gathered at the Hoffman House in New York City to begin the process of establishing a National Jockey Club to regulate Thoroughbred racing.138 Led by Dr. James Robert Keene, the new organization would be run by powerful men of “industry, finance, politics and sports” whose real interest was the integrity of horse racing and the enforcement of uniform rules throughout the United States.139 However, it was not without controversy. The National Jockey Club used intimidation to force other jockey clubs to join the organization; if they refused, their races would be boycotted by the most influential stables in America. The club also implemented an application process for trainers and jockeys in an effort to regulate who could be employed. Along with these changes, the Live Stock Record reported the invention of a new starting device to prevent “dishonest jockeys” from having an unfair advantage.140 The canvas and wood contraption was said to be able to start a race within five minutes' time, reducing the degree of jockeying for position and making horse racing more consistent. The game was evolving at a rapid pace to meet the needs of the owners and the spectators, especially those in the East.
Isaac, who was not naïve by any means, was well aware of what was happening to horse racing. He recognized that many of the changes were influenced by those who wanted to ensure the sport's honesty and provide good entertainment to spectators. However, he also knew that white jockeys and owners were likely colluding to reduce the number of mounts available to black jockeys, and if he wanted to remain relevant, he would have to find a place in horse racing's future. In the media he was very clear about his intentions for the 1894 season: “I am just as well now as I ever was and I cannot understand the report started that I had retired from the saddle. My present weight is about 115 pounds. So you see I am in pretty good shape. To keep my flesh hard I have a small gymnasium at home, where I punch the bag, swing clubs, etc. I can ride as light now as I could several years ago.”141 A man of his times, Isaac understood the value of physical fitness and year-round training to keep his body ready for the next grueling season. With regard to his contract situation, Isaac explained that he planned to ride in the “East, but as yet I have not made arrangements to ride for any particular stable. I will have a few horses in training myself that will race in the west.”142
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