Forgotten heroes of thoroughbred racing get permanent honor at Horse Park

Bill Cooke started working at the Kentucky Horse Park in 1977, before there was much of a park, much less an International Museum of the Horse.

In that 41 years, he built a museum based around the history and art of the horse, full of permanent exhibits like the Calumet Farm trophy collection, and a series of blockbuster traveling shows, like "Imperial China: The Art of the Horse in Chinese History," which featured art and artifacts that had never before left China.

Cooke retired as executive director last month, but not before leaving a swan song exhibit of a topic that is close to his heart: the once-hidden history of black jockeys who dominated thoroughbred horse racing in its early years. The best part, in his mind, is that this exhibit is permanent, meaning that visitors will continue to get an introduction to a history that never should have been forgotten.

"This going to rank as the second most satisfying exhibit of my four decades here, after China," Cooke said in a recent interview.

"Black Horsemen of the Kentucky Turf," starts with the earliest years of racing, when enslaved men from Kentucky first started riding thoroughbred racehorses, then quickly surged to the top of the sport. In the first Kentucky Derby run in 1875, thirteen of the fifteen jockeys were black, including the winner, Oliver Lewis on Aristides. Black jockeys won fifteen of the first twenty-eight Derbies. Isaac Murphy and Jimmy Winkfield, both of Lexington won the Derby several times each and became wealthy professional athletes.

But after Plessy v. Ferguson legalized "separate but equal" segregation, black horsemen were essentially pushed out of winners circles and relegated to positions of grooms and hotwalkers.

"If you look at the entire story, you're examining one microcosm of racism in America," Cooke said. "It was tragic."

The exhibit looks at people like Harry Lewis, a black horseman from Scott County who ended up with the racing rights to the famed stallion Lexington. He stands in a portrait by equine artist Edward Troye of a horse named Richard Singleton.

"Troye did us a hell of a favor because he did document some of the black horsemen," Cooke said. "It's the only visual record we have."

Cooke gives credit to historians like Yvonne Giles of Lexington, who uncovered much of the first information about black jockeys, and Katherine Mooney, author of "Race Horse Men: How Slavery and Freedom Were Made at the Race Track." Cooke has also set up a digital database of the black men and women of the horse industry, from jockeys to trainers to grooms. The National Chronicle of African American Horsemen will be a complementary part of the exhibit.

This latest exhibit is yet another imprint that Cooke has made at the Horse Park, said former executive director John Nicholson.

"How Bill built and grew the museum was a vital component to the history of the horse park," Nicholson said.

The China exhibit in 2000 was part of what gave state officials the confidence to bid on what turned into the 2010 World Equestrian Games, the most important competition in the park's history.

The Black Horsemen exhibit is "the latest example of how Bill has used the horse as a vehicle to tell a larger story.," Nicholson said. "That's what the International Museum of the Horse has done since its inception ... Bill Cooke never let us forget what our real purpose was, to celebrate the bond between mankind and the horse."

The history of black horsemen is some of the most important in Kentucky, Cooke says, and more people need to know about it.

"If you look around at libraries and museums and other places of learning. there is absolutely no place a teacher could take a class and introduce them to what seems to be a pretty startling revelation — that the thoroughbred industry was built on the backs of black horsemen," Cooke said. "What I think the ultimate aim of this exhibit is, is to show young African-American children that there is a place in the horse industry for them."

If You Go

'Black Horsemen of the Kentucky Turf'

Where: International Museum of the Horse, Kentucky Horse Park, 4089 Ironworks Parkway

When: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily

Admission: included with Kentucky Horse Park entry, $20 adults, $18 senior adults, $10 ages 6 to 12, free ages 5 and younger.

Phone: 859-259-4232

Online:Kyhorsepark.com, Imh.org

This story was originally published April 24, 2018 at 12:00 PM with the headline "Forgotten heroes of thoroughbred racing get permanent honor at Horse Park."