The Prince of Jockeys
Page 25
By the end of May 1878, Isaac had ridden in several meetings: the Nashville Blood Horse Association meeting, where he won two of three races on Williams's Fair Play and Shortline; the Kentucky Association meeting, where he finished second in the Blue Ribbon Stakes on R. H. Owens' Leveler and third on Vera Cruz in the sweepstakes race on the second day; and the Louisville Jockey Club meeting, where he finished in second place in three of the five races he started.86 Clearly, Isaac was not in top form. Perhaps the absence of Jordan was affecting his performance; Williams's instructions to Isaac may not have been what he was accustomed to, negatively influencing the results. There is a possibility that Isaac was hoping to be released from his contract so that he could join Jordan at Fleetwood. One could speculate that he purposely lost races to diminish his status with Williams. However, this is unlikely; Isaac would not have damaged a relationship that was so important to his career as a jockey, which was just beginning to flourish. In addition, a black boy refusing to follow the directions of a white man would have been too risky. Common sense and ambition would have kept the humble, quiet Isaac out of trouble.
The Williams stable traveled to Cincinnati for the Queen City Association meeting at Chester Park, scheduled to start on May 30. Arriving a few days early allowed both the horses and the jockeys to get accustomed to the track, its surface, and other particulars, such as knowing where the headwind was and where to make the winning jump on the field. On June 1, a generous crowd of 2,500 spectators came out to enjoy the races under clear skies. As Isaac trotted Classmate onto the track and positioned himself and his horse behind the starting line, he could not have anticipated the events that followed and the repercussions they would have on the rest of his life. In an 1889 interview, he recalled the incident that cost him four months of salary and bonuses:
I have been exceedingly fortunate in keeping the respect of starters and racing officials, and thus avoiding the ban of suspension with but one single exception…. I was riding Classmate in a race and a boy started to cross me, not only cutting me off, but running the risk of injuring both the mare and myself. As it was, it knocked the mare to her knees, but I soon pulled her together and was quickly in the race again. Another boy, Link Gross, who was in the race was also jostled by the same daring rider, and, Link's temper getting the best of him, he struck the offending lad in the face. The blood spurted on my shirt, and when the latter claimed foul against me and brought charges of my having hit him, the officials looked at the shirt and blood, and putting more faith in the circumstantial evidence than in my denial, disqualified Classmate for the head, fined me $25 and suspended me for a year.87
During his suspension, Isaac might have exercised horses for Williams or for other owners, who would have jumped at the opportunity to have their horses trained by a talented jockey. Or it is possible that his suspension forced Isaac to find work elsewhere, in some other occupation. Prevented from earning a living as a jockey, Isaac temporarily returned to a state of poverty. In hindsight, however, the suspension may have been the best thing for his career and perhaps his life.
Four months passed between Isaac's suspension from racing and his exoneration and eventual reinstatement on September 11, 1878, by the president of the Queen City Association, Edgar Johnson, who “later on apologized for his hasty action.”88 By this time, Isaac may have been released from his contract with Williams, because a jockey who could not race was of no use. In the same 1889 interview, Isaac recalled that the suspension cost him “considerable at the time, since I was a poor lad and the money I earned by my riding was all I had to live on.”89 This statement implies that Williams did not continue to pay Isaac during the suspension, but we do not know Williams's version of events. It may not have been the best of circumstances for Isaac, but it seems to have worked out to his advantage once he made his way to Frankfort, where Jordan was now working for Hunt-Reynolds.
Hunt-Reynolds was from one of the oldest families in Kentucky, a grandson of Lexington merchant John Wesley Hunt, a breeder of fine racehorses. Hunt-Reynolds was continuing his grandfather's legacy while indulging his lifelong passion for horses. A brief glimpse into his life is important to understand the type of man he was and the influence he would have on Isaac's future.
Born to Anna Taney Hunt and William Bell Reynolds in 1846, J. W. and his sister Catherine were raised by their mother's sister, Mary Hunt, and her husband, Judge John Hanna, after their mother died and their father was unable to care for them. The Hannas, who had no children of their own, adopted their niece and nephew. As part of the Hunt family, J. W. grew up with his first cousins, John Hunt Morgan (the future Confederate general) and his brother C. C. Morgan, who loved horses and rode them “like demons over the countryside.”90 John Hunt Morgan's skills as a horseman would be documented in the reports of Union officers, who noted his use of guerrilla tactics in raids on Union depots and supply lines and his ability to evade capture. The fact is that Morgan knew the land better than the Union soldiers chasing him. As boys, he, his brother C. C., and their cousin J. W. had stayed in the saddle from dawn to dusk, pursuing adventures on horseback.
As soon as Catherine was old enough, Mrs. Hanna sent her to New York to attend Madame Chageri's Seminary for ladies, where she would learn to be a proper lady. However, after the outbreak of the Civil War and the death of Judge Hanna in 1861, Mrs. Hanna moved with the children to Frankfurt, Germany, to escape the violence and uncertainty in Kentucky. J. W. attended the University of Heidelberg, where he studied history, politics, languages, literature, and the arts. By all accounts, he was an “ebullient spirit” who quickly developed into a mature and effusive gentleman.91 He met his future wife, Meta Fleetwood Westfeldt, in Germany; she was also attending the University of Heidelberg and was an intellectual force equal to her future husband. It is not clear whether they married in Germany, in Kentucky, or in New York City, where Meta's father, Gustav Westfeldt, was a coffee merchant.
We do know that after the Civil War, Hunt-Reynolds returned to Frankfort with his sister and his aunt. After settling in and adjusting to the changes that had taken place in Kentucky, he began the process of establishing his livestock farm, concentrating on Thoroughbred horses. Within a few years of his return to the United States, and using the substantial wealth inherited from his father, grandfather, and uncle, Hunt-Reynolds purchased “637 acres of high, rolling land, mostly set in grass” and surrounded by trees, near the Kentucky River on the Frankfort and Louisville Turnpike. Named after an ancestor of Meta's, Fleetwood Stock Farm was completed sometime between 1867 and 1868.92 J. W. and Meta's only child, Meta Christina Hunt-Reynolds, was born January 20, 1869.
In the Frankfort community, J. W. served in a number of capacities: as a member of the Knights Templar and Commandery, on the board of the directors of the Frankfort Agricultural and Mechanical Association, and as a delegate for Ascension Episcopal Church at the annual convention in Louisville.93 A generous person who “gave a hand in every public enterprise, and took the lead in many social interests,” Hunt-Reynolds was considered a man of unimpeachable character.94 It is unknown where he stood on the race question and whether he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan or participated in the lynching of blacks.
Over the course of ten years, Hunt-Reynolds built an estate worth an estimated $82,000, with additional assets in Louisville real estate.95 Although genial and scholarly, Hunt-Reynolds was also competitive: he wanted his horses to win. J. H. Walden, Hunt-Reynolds's trainer and the superintendent of his Fleetwood Stock Farm, was responsible for maintaining the property but was inconsistent in bringing home winners. Hunt-Reynolds was a founding member of the Louisville Jockey Club, and despite all his work to ensure the quality of Jockey Club meetings, his horses fell short. Hunt-Reynolds's decision to hire Eli Jordan as his new head trainer was a sign that he was anxious to put it all together: his investment of time, energy, and resources to improve the breed and his patience in working to develop the perfect Thoroughbred. When Isaac decided to join Jor
dan and ride for Fleetwood, he started down a path that would establish his reputation as a consistent winner, an individual of radiant character, and an exemplar of manly virtues.
On Wednesday, September 11, the third day of the Kentucky Association's fall meeting, Isaac made his debut wearing the red and white colors of Hunt-Reynolds's Fleetwood stable. In his first race after his suspension, Isaac took the reins of the bay colt Caligula in a mile-and-a-half “Selling Sweepstakes Race” worth $525. After a “fairish start,” the field of six set out on a feverish pace to gain momentum in an effort to capture the lead and eventually the victory. Isaac waited for the right moment to guide his spirited horse to the front. As the “platoon” rounded the lower curve and entered the stretch, Isaac and Caligula made their move. Without hesitation, they surged into the lead and held on to win by two lengths.96 On day four, riding Ed Turner for Taylor and Company in a match race against Dan Swigert's Mexico, Isaac kept the pace where he needed it and broke away to win easily by two lengths. Two days later, the editor of the Kentucky Live Stock Record remarked on the result: “Ed Turner bowled over Mexico in the mile and half race. Isaac Murphy, who has been reinstated, rode him with artistic skill and judgment.”97 Clearly, the horse world was taking notice.
At Louisville that fall, Isaac struggled to find his rhythm and gain a sense of familiarity with the horses. He finished in the money in six of his twelve races but had no victories. His rival from the East, James McLaughlin, won a majority of the races he started, and Isaac finished behind him in every race except the last one. What is most significant about that final race was an incident that validated Isaac's character and honesty. On the seventh and final day of the races at Louisville, Isaac was asked to replace Spillman, the jockey riding J. C. Murphy's bay colt Edinburgh, in the third race of an all-ages contest of one-mile heats for a purse of $300. It is not clear why Jockey Club president Meriwether Lewis Clark removed the assigned jockey and selected Isaac to fill in.98 Did he suspect that the jockey had pulled Edinburgh in the first heat? Had Spillman said or done something that led Clark to believe he was plotting to bring shame to the club and the track?
Earlier in the year, on the Fourth of July, the Louisville Jockey Club had hosted a big $10,000, four-mile match race between Kentucky's Ten Broeck, owned by Frank Harper, and California's champion mare Mollie McCarthy, owned by Theodore Winters. Clark heard rumors that the great black jockey William Walker was going to throw the race. In an interview, Harper recalled the confrontation between Walker and Clark:
The jockeys were called up to receive their instruction from the Judge. Col. Clark said…“I hear there are suspicions that you are going to throw this race. You will be watched the whole way, and if you do not ride to win, a rope will be put about your neck and you will be hung to that tree yonder (pointing the tree just opposite the Judges' stand), and I will help to do it.” Walker tried to answer him, and say that he did not want to ride in the race, but Colonel Clark would not let him speak.99
It is likely that Isaac was at that race to support Walker, his friend and mentor, and heard the threat against his life if anything in the race looked suspicious.
Given the history of lynching in Kentucky and the seriousness of the accusation, the threat was a real one. Clark demanded unwavering honesty in the saddle, especially among the black jockeys. However, there were too many variables in a race—unforeseeable circumstances or obstacles—that might result in a loss and be construed as intentional, leading to the death of an innocent jockey. Did the white boys receive the same threats if they lost? Probably not. Why were black jockeys subjected to this kind of abuse? Quite plainly, it was part of the history of the sport in Kentucky and the traditions associated with black labor and white power. Historian Maryjean Wall identifies the connection between wealthy “landowners who bred horses” and the violence inflicted on blacks in Kentucky.100 The fact is that numerous members of the Klan were local farmers and gentlemen of the turf who refused to accept the changes brought about by the Civil War. Reconstruction had come to an abrupt end, and Southern white men were no longer under surveillance by the Federal government, allowing them to perpetrate violence against blacks undisguised and in broad daylight. Blacks were slipping back into a state of nonpersonhood: the “socially dead.”101
Whatever Clark's motivation was for choosing Isaac as the replacement jockey for Edinburgh, no one contested it. He finished second, but in front of his rival McLaughlin.102 It is quite possible that this particular episode in his early career informed or confirmed Isaac's decision to always be honest and avoid the temptations of gambling that led jockeys to pull horses and throw races. He would tell his fellow jockey John “Kid” Stoval that if he were honest, he could get all the mounts he desired. That was true for the time being, but there would soon be other unsavory influences to deal with.
Through the end of the 1878 season, Isaac's superb riding elevated Fleetwood to the premier stud farm for Thoroughbreds in the Bluegrass. It was also home of the best jockey in the state of Kentucky, if not the entire South. But he still had to prove himself back East.
Prior to the start of the 1879 season, eighteen-year-old Isaac had ballooned up to more than 130 pounds. This marked the beginning of his battle with weight and the debilitating disease that afflicted a majority of jockeys of the late nineteenth century and cost some of them their lives. Isaac's weight gain was not the result of overindulgence; the winter months spent away from horses and the track gave his body a chance to recover from the stress of maintaining a low riding weight. (Later, like most professional athletes, Isaac would spend the off-season savoring his well-deserved rest, dining, traveling, and otherwise enjoying his wealth. As he eventually learned, there was a price to pay for success.) No longer the lithe and lightweight exercise boy, Isaac was overweight in the spring of 1879 and needed to drop thirty pounds as soon as possible.103 Most jockeys did not have nutritional programs or structured exercise routines to help them keep fit and active during the off-season. Scientifically sound techniques of weight control for athletes were decades away.104
There were several methods for “training down.” Fred Taral used to run with several sweaters on to increase perspiration, and Ed “Snapper” Garrison ran behind a moving wagon holding onto the “tail board.” Other jockeys took Turkish baths or sparred with boxing gloves to lose weight. Although it was supposedly effective, most jockeys avoided the old-fashioned method of sitting in a pile of manure to induce perspiration. In extreme cases, jockeys used starvation diets to lose weight quickly or “purged” after eating.105 Some jockeys used enemas or natural laxatives, like “black draught,” to clear their bowels. Learning from other jockeys, Isaac eventually developed his own method, which in time would prove both beneficial and costly. For now, he simply went without food and took extended walks, covering several miles, in the weeks and days before a race.106 As he got older and heavier, the results of his rigorous and dangerous weight-loss routine left Isaac weak and ineffective at the beginning of each season, but once he was at his optimal weight, he managed to maintain it by eating eat fruit and small pieces of “very rare steak.”107 Between races, he spent a considerable amount of time resting, attempting to recover from the tremendous fatigue and strain on his body that came from trying to control his spirited mounts while in a perpetual state of hunger.
When Isaac mounted Falsetto for the Phoenix Stakes at the Kentucky Association meeting on May 10, 1879, he had dropped more than thirty pounds and was probably feeling weak. After numerous false starts, the race began with Trinidad, ridden by Allen, in the lead. Isaac kept Falsetto back and waited until the furlong pole to rush “between Scully and Ada Glenn, throwing the latter off her stride, and winning the race on the post by a neck.”108 Though exhausted, he won two other races over a three-day period.
After winning the stakes race in Lexington, and no doubt feeling pleased with his performance, Isaac and the Hunt-Reynolds stable made their way to the Louisville meeting. May 20 was cle
ar and warm, the track was fast, and “attendance was very large.” In the first race, atop Hunt-Reynolds's Fortuna, Isaac took control of the race, only to have it end in a dead heat with William Jennings's Glenmore. In the second race, the Kentucky Derby, Isaac rode Falsetto again, but he waited too long to reel in the colt named Lord Murphy, ridden by white jockey Charlie Shauer. In what was described as “a most exciting race,” Falsetto came on like a dynamo “within forty yards of the stand where Lord Murphy drew clear and won the race by a length and a half.”109 Although he probably thought he should have won the Kentucky Derby, the race was still in its infancy (not the premier contest it is today), so Isaac considered it just another race. It was just one of the 100 or more starts he would have that season. Still, he may have felt the need to redeem himself in his remaining races, and by the end of the meeting he had nine wins, including the Louisville Cup on Fortuna, the Tennessee Stakes on G. W. Bowen and Company's Wallenstein, and the Merchants' Stake on Hunt-Reynolds's Blue Eyes.