James Winkfield biography
James Winkfield, byname Jimmy Winkfield, (born April 12, 1882, Chilesburg, Kentucky, U.S.—died March 23, 1974, close to Paris, France), American jockey, the final African American to win the Kentucky Derby.
In 1898 Winkfield’s first race ended shortly with a four-horse tumble out of the gate that earned him a one-year suspension. On his return he quickly made up for his earlier mistake and earned 4 consecutive rides within the Kentucky Derby, the place he completed third, first, first, and second from 1900 via 1903. In 1901 alone he received some 160 races, however he acquired little discover inside or exterior the horse-racing neighborhood. In 1903 he rode in what was then the richest race within the United States, the Futurity Stakes in New York City. Already scheduled to journey for his traditional steady within the race, he accepted a $3,000 provide to journey for one more proprietor as an alternative. His popularity was tarnished, and the variety of his rides dropped by a 3rd in 1903.
With his profession in bother, racetracks closing across the nation due to new antigambling laws (down from 314 racetracks in 1890 to 25 by 1908), and racial discrimination curbing alternatives for work, Winkfield left the United States in 1904 to simply accept a place with an American-owned steady working in Poland and Russia. (Many veteran American jockeys prolonged their careers in Europe, the place heavier using weights prevailed.) In his first season he received the Emperor’s Purse in Russia and the “Tsarist Triple Crown”—the Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Warsaw derbies—and he was the 1904 Russian nationwide using champion. Beginning in 1909, he rode in Austria and Germany for a Polish prince and a German baron, notably profitable the 1909 Grosser Preis von Baden in Germany. In 1913 he returned to Russia, the place he earned 25,000 rubles a yr plus 10 p.c of all purses. At his peak he earned roughly 100,000 rubles per yr.
In 1919 the consequences of the Russian Revolution reached him in Odessa, and, along with a Polish nobleman, he led the southern Russian racing colony, together with 200 Thoroughbreds, on a hazardous escape to Poland. By 1920 Winkfield had reached Paris, the place he resumed racing and received the Prix du Président de la République. He quickly met and married an exiled Russian aristocrat, and he retired in 1930 to focus on breeding and coaching racehorses on property he purchased close to Maisons-Laffitte. Altogether, he had received roughly 2,600 races within the United States, Russia, Germany, Austria, France, Italy, and Spain.
Like different African American jockeys of his period, Winkfield was largely forgotten after his retirement. Efforts to acknowledge him within the United States have been undermined by racial discrimination: in 1961 the National Turf Writers Association invited Winkfield to a banquet at a resort in Louisville, Kentucky, that refused him entrance till others intervened. Winkfield was inducted into the corridor of fame on the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 2004. The Jimmy Winkfield Stakes, an annual race, was first run in 2005 at Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, New York.