Isaac Murphy by Katherine C. Mooney;

Author:Katherine C. Mooney;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2023-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

Murphy dressed to ride at one of the New York tracks. Keeneland Library Hemment Collection.

Allen stabled Kingman in his lucky stall, where he’d kept Vagrant before the Derby, and planned. Balgowan, his horse’s main opposition, would keep a falsely slow pace, tricking the others into thinking that he was going as fast as he could, when he was truly saving speed for a surprising spurt in the homestretch. Allen figured to foil that plan; besides, a slow pace favored Kingman, since Allen wasn’t quite sure he could stay the distance.34 He instructed Murphy “to walk if Balgowan walked.”35

The 1891 Derby drew the biggest crowd in the race’s history up to that time. People streamed into Churchill Downs until every space was full. When Kingman and Murphy appeared, there came a tide of “cheers that surrounding knobs and hilltops took up and echoed back again.”36 The four runners ambled for a mile, as Murphy followed instructions and waited, lurking with Balgowan in the rear. With a half mile left, the jockeys went to work, and Balgowan took the lead, with Murphy, in typical fashion, still biding his time. It wasn’t until the last furlong that he sent Kingman to the lead and got him home by a length.37

Allen and Stone were said to have paid Murphy a thousand-dollar bonus for his victory.38 But more importantly he had won his third Derby, a record that would stand until 1948, when Eddie Arcaro won a fourth Derby with Triple Crown winner Citation. And Murphy had won it for a Black man he had known for years, a man who had served, like his father, during the war for emancipation, who lived only a few blocks from his house. His career had been permanently altered the previous summer, but the men who had taught him his trade still respected him, and he used his skill to showcase their talents to the world.

Murphy may have had more time that winter to socialize in the community that had fostered and supported him, as he recovered from the previous year’s racing. Anthony Hamilton married Annie Messley of St. Louis, and the bride and groom went from their wedding to Lexington for receptions with racetrack friends. The lavish ceremony made national news, as did the party Murphy threw for his friend.39 The guest list included many of Lexington’s Black horsemen, like John T. Clay, Edward Brown, William Walker, Tom Britton, and their families, along with friends like Leonard McPheeters, who worked at the Phoenix Hotel, and Benjamin Franklin, one of the local barbers. The Lexington papers described the ladies’ dresses and the dancing and concluded, “The reception he gave has seldom been equaled even in white circles.”40

It was a banner time for weddings among the group of friends. William Walker married Hannah Estill, a neighborhood girl, at Murphy’s house that June.41 Murphy also attended the wedding of jockey Tom Britton, scion of a prominent Lexington family of African American professionals, that spring.42 In 1892, Murphy’s cousin got married, and this time Abe Perry and his wife hosted the reception.

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