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Horseracing

Who was the first jockey of any race to win the Kentucky Derby?

Oliver Lewis (1856–1924) was the first jockey of any race to win the Kentucky Derby. In 1875 he rode three-year-old Aristides in the first race in record time. Thirteen of the fifteen jockeys in the first race were black. African-American jockeys won fifteen of the first twenty-eight Kentucky Derby races, before the races were segregated. In 1921 Henry King was the last black jockey from the United States to ride in a derby until Marion St. Julien in 2000. Other black derby winners included William “Billy” Walker (1877), George Lewis (1880), Babe Hurd (1882), Isaac Murphy (1884, 1890, 1891), Erskine Henderson (1885), Alonzo Clayton (1892), James Perkins (1895), Willie Sims (1896, 1898), and Jimmie Winkfield (1901, 1902).



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