The Prince of Jockeys

by Pellom McDaniels III

  While Isaac planned his personal training schedule, worked out his stable's entries for the season (nearly four months away), and coordinated his contracts with various employers, Lucy made plans to celebrate her husband's thirty-first birthday and their wedding anniversary. Over the course of their marriage, Isaac and Lucy were rarely apart. They seemed to enjoy traveling together and participating in the culture, entertainment, and society life of the various cities they visited, from Los Angeles to Chicago to New York. The reason for their childless state is unknown. Perhaps there were fertility issues, or maybe they simply wanted to wait until Isaac's riding years were over and he did not have to travel so frequently. Said differently, children might have been an inconvenience to the young couple caught up in their upper-middle-class lifestyle.

  A few weeks after Isaac and Lucy celebrated their ninth wedding anniversary, the Indianapolis Freeman published an account of the public meeting between delegates of the Anti–Separate Coach State Convention and the Joint Railroad Committee. They were listening to arguments related to a December 1891 bill sponsored by state senator Tipton Miller, a Democrat from Calloway County. The bill proposed to legally separate blacks and whites on passenger trains operating in and traveling through the state of Kentucky with a “wooden partition, with a door therein…and shall bear in some conspicuous place appropriate words in plain letters indicating the race it is set apart for.”99 Essentially, the bill had originated at the request of constituents from rural Kentucky, mostly farmers and poor whites who never traveled by railroad themselves but “were offended that blacks were even on the trains, and even more so at the thought that some of them might be traveling first class.”100 At the state capital, John H. Jackson, a black representative elected by the Anti–Separate Coach State Convention delegates, argued that such a law was harmful not only to blacks but also to the future of the state and its development:

  Professor John H. Jackson, of the State Normal school, was the first to take the floor. He explained how the Negroes of Kentucky were opposed to the separate coach bill and told why they protested against its passage. There were differences in social and mental conditions among colored people, as well as among whites. Some were low and depraved and unfit to associate with the decent. Others were ambitious and enterprising, who loved their country, respected themselves and wanted to be near the better class of whites because of the refining and civilizing teaching such association imparted. He closed by offering as a substitute from all the pending measures a bill which made first and second class divisions of passengers, to apply to whites and blacks alike. Not color, but condition was to form the dividing line. He wanted the colored people to be made to feel that they were fellow-citizens in deed and in fact.101

  As the state senate debated the bill, with both Republicans and Democrats challenging its validity, African Americans continued to make their thoughts known and their voices heard. On April 19 Lexington-born educator and community leader Mary Britton critiqued the civility of the state's best citizens for allowing the desires of the self-conscious masses of ignorant folks to cause trouble for a vulnerable population of law-abiding and peaceful citizens. In the Kentucky Leader, Britton wrote: “We are aware that the Assembly has the power to inflict such a law, but is it right? While we no longer chill the blood of our friends by talking of branding irons, chains, whips, blood hounds and to the many physical wrongs and abominations of slavery, this foe of American prejudice renders our lives insecure, our homes unhappy, and crushes out the very sinew of existence—freedom and citizenship.”102 The African American community's response to the separate coach bill, which the railroad companies also opposed, was important in the long history of dissent and active agitation against the wrongs advanced by white supremacy as the natural state of things.103

  Black Kentuckians were shocked to learn on May 24, 1892, that Governor Brown had signed the separate coach bill into law, after it had passed the house by a vote of sixty-five to twenty-five and the senate by a vote of eighteen to ten.104 Thus began the process of formalizing the concept of racial segregation, which would spread like a cancer to the “other states of the late Confederacy in excluding colored people from public places, such as hotels, theaters, passenger coaches, etc.”105 Regardless of their social, political, and economic status as a race, whites understood that they possessed cultural capital that could be converted into political power. Even the unsophisticated who lacked wealth could claim their whiteness as collateral, which became a form of currency to be used in the maintenance of white power over blacks and other racial minorities.

  Isaac was likely concerned that the new separate car law would hinder his ability to travel and pursue his occupation. However, because he was scheduled to ride in the East for a majority of the 1892 season, the initial effect would be minimal. Although we cannot know for sure, it is possible that Isaac and Lucy supported efforts to test the law in the same fashion that Homer Plessy tested Louisiana's separate car law. They could afford the financial commitment required to pursue a lawsuit, and given their position as leaders in the Lexington community, they might have been expected to do so. More immediately pressing, though, was how this national movement of exclusion would affect Isaac's interactions with white owners, jockeys, and horse-racing officials around the country. Would the color line be drawn on the track, as it was in the boxing ring and on the baseball field?

  After winning the Phoenix Stakes on R. T. Holloway's Wadsworth in characteristic style, “never showing in front until the half was reached,” Isaac headed east to begin the racing season with the confederation of stables composed of McLewee, Ehret, and Allen.106 The Murphys might have returned to Red Bank, New Jersey, to the cottage they had resided in the previous August. In any case, Isaac was there to race at the New York Jockey Club's spring meeting at Morris Park. On May 30, in the first race of the day, Isaac rode Barrick and Withrow's chestnut colt Dr. Hasbrouck to victory, defeating Fred Littlefield riding Correction. Dr. Hasbrouck easily carried Isaac's 122 pounds, winning the five-furlong race in a record time of fifty-nine seconds, which drew applause from the appreciative crowd.107 On June 3 Isaac repeated his winning ways, taking the Ladies Stakes on Ehret's chestnut filly Yorkville Belle over a field that included jockeys Willie Simms and Anthony Hamilton. Three days later, having dropped 10 pounds to ride at 107 pounds in the Withers Stakes on Yorkville Belle, Murphy finished third and in the money, but he was exhausted. Seeing Isaac suffer in the effort to keep his weight down must have been agonizing for Lucy.

  Surviving his drastic weight loss, the determined professional had a few days to rest before the Great Eclipse Stakes, worth $20,000 to the winning stable. In his cottage at Red Bank, Isaac would have slept to regain his strength, but he would not alter his other routines: his customary five- to ten-mile walk layered in sweaters to promote perspiration, and his minuscule meals consisting of a little fruit and small bits of meat for protein. For the Great Eclipse Stakes, Isaac was scheduled to ride Ehret's Don Alonzo, a two-year-old bay colt with a ton of potential. On the day of the race, Morris Park was swollen with spectators milling around the grandstands and the grass that framed the straightaway. In addition to Isaac riding the favorite, the field of eleven starters included Fred Taral aboard Sir Walter, Ed Garrison on Shelley Tuttle, and William Fitzpatrick on Dr. Rice. In Isaac's view, these three sure-handed jockeys were the ones to beat.

  After a bit of drama at the starting line—three jockeys were thrown, including Garrison, whose horse literally laid down on the ground to unseat him—the start came off all right. In a great race between two highly capable horses, Sir Walter and Don Alonzo, Taral edged Murphy by a head at the finish. The two horses had met previously in the Great American Stakes in Brooklyn, where Garrison had ridden Sir Walter to victory. From the beginning, Murphy had played his waiting race as the three front-runners ran “stride for stride” down the straightaway toward the finish. Although the New York Times recognized that the winner did not have an “easy victor
y of it,” it criticized Murphy's “weak finish that beat” Don Alonzo.108 This critique of Isaac's riding would continue throughout the meeting. In the New York Herald-Tribune, an anonymous writer had this to say:

  People who apologize for Murphy's riding forget that in 1890 he was so drunk in an important race when he rode Firenzi that he fell off the mare's back, and was suspended for thirty days by the racing authorities. He has never been of any real value as a jockey since and his wretched riding on Don Alonzo, Yorkville Belle and other horses has cost the Ehret Stables this year at least $50,000, which they would have won with a competent jockey on its horses. Never was the riding of a jockey more thoroughly exposed than was that of Murphy by Don Alonzo's extremely easy success in the Sapling Stakes in fast time. With Murphy up, this colt has been beaten in stake after stake by a head in slow time. With Taral up, Don Alonzo won Sapling Stakes under double pull in fast time. The inference is easy. But there is not the slightest danger of the Board of Control comprehending the situation. That remarkable body needs a stroke of lightning to electrify its sessions. Nothing else will ever illuminate its scant intelligence.109

  How Isaac took this criticism is not known, but he likely pointed out that most of the writer's points were false. Murphy had been publicly exonerated of any wrongdoing in the 1890 incident; he had won both the Kentucky and the Latonia Derbies in 1891; and since the New York Jockey Club meeting, he had not only won on Yorkville Belle but also placed on Don Alonzo.

  What is most telling about the writer of this critique is the language he used to describe the difference between how Murphy rode (slow) and how jockeys were supposed to ride (fast), indicating no appreciation of the time when gamesmanship, strategy, and sportsmanship were part of horse racing. Clearly, the writer had no sense of history and Murphy's role in the development of the sport in America. But that was Isaac's problem: those times were gone. In addition, he no longer had two- and four-mile races to pace himself and test the field. In the context of the changing significance of sports, Isaac was becoming obsolete, and owners and spectators no longer appreciated the vast knowledge and experience a master jockey brought to the sport of horse racing.

  Within three days of the article being published, the Ehret-McLewee-Allen combination informed Isaac that his services were no longer needed. The partners offered to settle his contract by paying him only $3,000 of the $10,000 agreed on. Of course, Isaac refused to accept their less than generous offer, and the New York Times reported that “he will have all that is due to him and…will report for duty daily so long as he is required to by the terms of his contract and claim full pay for his services.” The veteran jockey refused to back down, and his response to the criticism was simply that “he was unfairly treated.” The Times noted, “Saturday last when he was set down and Taral was secured to ride Don Alonzo for the stable,…the fact that Taral won the stake with the colt is no proof that he [Murphy] could not have done so, particularly as the horse had nothing to beat in the race while he has always had a hard lot to beat when Murphy has had the mount on him, and been beaten by the very narrowest of margins.”110

  Within days, Isaac's relationship with the Ehret-McLewee-Allen firm was severed, and he was given his full salary. However, he could not ride for any other owners without the permission of the firm. When another owner wanted Murphy to ride Morello in the $65,000 Futurity Stakes, which guaranteed a $7,000 purse to the winning jockey, McLewee refused to allow him to take the mount, noting that Murphy “was getting a rather large salary for doing nothing and that he thought he had better continue to earn it by sitting in the grand stand and watch the race from that spot instead of Morello's back.”111 Morello won the Futurity with William Howard up, and a few jockeys, including Murphy, were jealous, angry, or both.

  At the end of the season, Isaac and Lucy returned to Lexington without any fanfare. Isaac lacked the major victories that used to put him in the spotlight. In fact, his 1892 totals were an abysmal six wins out of forty-two starts. This is understandable, considering his contract dispute with Ehret, McLewee, and Allen and their control over him. Besides the contract issues that prevented him from taking more mounts, the other major obstacle for Isaac was the changing nature of horse racing. Gone were the prominent owners who strategized against each other like chess masters playing a rook for a pawn. The game was now all about speed, straightaway racing, and running as many horses as possible. The pastoral had been replaced by the industrial model of productivity: constant movement equals profitability.

  Having had his season come to a close in such an unprecedented fashion, Isaac became more aware of the potential challenges ahead. He understood that his career and everything he had worked for were in jeopardy each time he was denied a mount or passed over for a white jockey. What he thought about the changes in the sport and the new breed of owners he shared only with his closest friends and, of course, with Lucy. Over the winter of 1892 and into the spring of 1893, he sought answers to questions related to his future as a jockey. Would he choose the path of his mentor, Eli Jordan, and become a trainer for the wealthiest owners? Would he maintain his own stable with quality horses and engage jockeys to wear his colors, competing for purses and power at the jockey clubs in the East and the West? Could he retire from the track altogether and find a new occupation that would provide the same comforts he and Lucy had become accustomed to? What did the future hold for Isaac Burns Murphy?

  At their Lexington residence, Isaac and Lucy undoubtedly discussed their future, daydreaming about the possibility of regaining what had been lost after his poisoning at Monmouth Park in 1890 and the subsequent allegations and negative publicity. If not for that event, it is possible that the contract dispute with the Ehret-McLewee-Allen firm would not have occurred; that he would not have lost the opportunity for additional mounts and the revenue they could generate; and that the catcalls from the white boys and men in the stands, trying to put Isaac in his place, would not have been so cutting. But the attempt on his life did occur, and Isaac could not help but remember that each time he raced. Worst of all, when the quiet hours between dusk and dawn allowed for deep contemplation, Isaac could not help but turn over in his mind the fact that he was a black man in a country that was becoming exceedingly hostile to people of African descent. He was a black man competing for the same opportunities as white men, who despised him because of his success.

  A few weeks after Lucy and Isaac celebrated their tenth wedding anniversary by hosting more than a dozen friends and relatives at their home, Isaac announced his plan to continue in the saddle while making the transition to a full-time owner-trainer. Like Ansel Williamson, Ed Brown, Dudley Allen, and William Walker, Isaac would use his experience and his knowledge of horses and racing to author the rest of his life's story. If anyone could develop winners, surely he could. Echoing his announcement, the New York Times ran with the story: “Jockey Isaac Murphy has decided to ride this season for his own stable, when he can make weight. He will personally superintend the training and preparation of his horses for stake events, and has collected quite a string of runners.”112 What better way to respond to the challenge of being denied a chance to earn a living in an occupation he had helped revolutionize?

  In mid-February an article appeared in the Live Stock Record that may have been a boost to the still somewhat dejected Murphy. Under the pen name “Longfellow,” the author wrote:

  A majority of the turfmen, at Churchill Downs, are disposed to stick to Isaac Murphy as the premier jockey of America. He was so long the acknowledged head and front of his profession, that it is no easy matter for his admirers to concede that there is now any one superior to him in the saddle. They claim that Murphy did not have a fair showing in the East last year, and that what riding he did compared favorably with that of Garrison, or any other jockey. I talked with an experienced trainer on this subject, and he said that he watched Murphy's work in the saddle very closely, and saw him do as fine riding as he ever did in his life. The same trainer
says that Murphy will be able to ride this year at 110 pounds or perhaps less. It has been reported that he is negotiating with Mr. Foxhall Keene with the view of signing with him, this year, as head jockey, but the report has not yet been substantiated. It looks like Murphy was preparing to have a stable of this own, as he has recently purchased several promising two-year olds, and already owned a few in the older divisions. With his large experience with horses, it looks like Murphy ought to make a success of a stable of his own.113

  This article must have come as a great surprise to Isaac, who was no doubt preparing for the 1893 season with some apprehension. In fact, it may have changed his mind about riding for himself, given the expense of running a stable and chasing prizes at racecourses across the country. There is little evidence that Isaac actually entered a horse under his colors in any meeting during the 1893 season.

  By late February, it was reported that Murphy had agreed to ride for Gideon and Daly for the season, taking the “heavy weight riding for their stable.”114 Along with Monk Overton, Isaac gave the Gideon and Daly stable coverage in the weight categories that would net the most return for their investment in horseflesh as well as talent in the saddle. Other black jockeys also took advantage of the opportunity to ride as “heavyweights”; Tom Britton signed with Captain S. S. Brown out of Mobile, Alabama.115 If Murphy, Overton, and Britton could maintain their weight at less than 118 pounds, they could get big races and earn a portion of the large purses. Isaac thus guaranteed himself a salary.