James Winkfield
James Winkfield was a renowned American jockey born on April 12, 1882, in Chilesburg, Kentucky. The youngest of seventeen children raised on a sharecropper’s farm, Winkfield began his racing career at a young age, eventually earning a reputation in the competitive world of horse racing. He made history by winning the Kentucky Derby in consecutive years, 1901 and 1902, with notable horses like His Eminence and Alan-a-Dale. Despite facing significant challenges, including racism and threats from the Ku Klux Klan, Winkfield moved to Europe, where he became an international star and won prestigious races such as the Emperor's Purse and the Tsarist Triple Crown.
After a brief return to the U.S. during World War II, Winkfield continued to contribute to the racing community as a horse owner and trainer. His legacy was solidified with his induction into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 2004 and the establishment of the Jimmy Winkfield Stakes at Aqueduct Racetrack in 1985. Winkfield's life and career exemplify the resilience and talent of a pioneering figure in horse racing, whose contributions have garnered renewed recognition in recent years. He passed away on March 23, 1974, near Paris, France, at the age of ninety-one.
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Subject Terms
James Winkfield
Jockey
- Born: April 12, 1882
- Birthplace: Chilesburg, Kentucky
- Died: March 23, 1974
- Place of death: Maisons-Laffitte, France
An international celebrity at the beginning of the twentieth century, Winkfield accomplished the rare feat of winning the Kentucky Derby in consecutive years. His career spanned thirty years and more than twenty-six hundred wins. After his racing days were over, he became an owner and trainer of horses.
Early Life
James Winkfield was born on April 12, 1882, in Chilesburg, Kentucky, near Lexington. He was the youngest of his parents’ seventeen children, and he was raised on the farm where his father worked as a sharecropper. Winkfield dropped out of school before completing his high school education but rode horses from an early age; by 1898, he was racing horses professionally for a monthly salary of $8.
Life’s Work
In one of Winkfield’s first races, he was involved in a four-horse collision at the starting line and received a brief suspension from the sport. However, his talent was such that he soon found himself back on the track, making increasingly large sums. In 1900, he finished third in the Kentucky Derby while riding Thrive. In 1901, Winkfield won the Derby riding His Eminence, then repeated the feat on Alan-a-Dale in 1902. Few jockeys ever have won the Kentucky Derby in consecutive years. In 1903, Winkfield finished second in the Derby with the horse Early.
That year, Winkfield allegedly accepted a late offer of $3,000 from a rival owner to switch camps, racing a different horse than he originally had promised in the Futurity Stakes event. Although the details were disputed, Winkfield’s reputation plummeted; after enduring racism within the racing community and outright threats on his life from the Ku Klux Klan, Winkfield decided to move to Europe, where racing was more lucrative. He became an international celebrity, racing in events with much larger purses than the Kentucky Derby. He won the Emperor’s Purse and the Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Warsaw races (the so-called “Tsarist Triple Crown”). Winkfield bounced around Europe, moving to Germany to race there in 1909, then moving back to Russia in 1913.
The Russian Revolution brought an end to aristocratic patronage of horse racing in Russia in 1919, and Winkfield took part in the daring transport of 150 horses out of the country and into Poland. Winkfield returned to Paris destitute in 1920 and began to race again. He soon found renewed success, winning both the Prix du Président de la République and Grand Prix de Deauville in 1922. In 1930, Winkfield retired as a jockey and began directing his energy toward his own stable of horses.
Although Winkfield’s career as an owner lasted throughout the 1930’s, the oubreak of World War II brought an end to his business; in 1940, he was evacuated to the United States. Virtually unknown in the United States and penniless once again, Winkfield became a construction worker for the federal Works Progress Administration and eventually found work at a stable. He returned to France in 1953 and again became an owner and trainer of horses. In 1961, he visited Louisville, Kentucky, for an event commemorating his victories at the Kentucky Derby sixty years earlier.
Winkfield died near Paris on March 23, 1974, at the age of ninety-one. He was interred at Maisons-Laffitte, near his home.
Significance
Although his accomplishments were long overlooked, Winkfield ranks among the best jockeys of all time. Over a thirty-year span, he won many of the major racing prizes of his day; his contributions to the sport continued even after his career as a jockey ended, through his successful ventures as an owner and trainer. In 2003, an exhibition at the Kentucky Derby Museum brought him back into the public eye, and in 2004, he was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame. He also was recognized in a 2005 Congressional resolution, passed shortly before the 131st Kentucky Derby. A race in his honor, the Jimmy Winkfield Stakes, has been run annually at the Aqueduct Racetrack in New York since 1985.
Bibliography
Drape, Joe. Black Maestro: The Epic Life of an American Legend. New York: HarperCollins, 2007. Drape’s account of Winkfield’s life is the best full biography of the athlete available, providing a well-researched account of his career written in an accessible manner.
“’A Feeling of a Lifetime’: St. Julien Will Be First Black Jockey in Seventy-nine Years at Derby.” The Associated Press, May 4, 2000. Provides a concise summary of the history of African Americans at the Kentucky Derby.
Hotaling, Ed. Wink: The Incredible Life and Epic Journey of Jimmy Winkfield. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005. This entertaining full-length popular biography, written in a readable style by a racing insider, is a good source for details on Winkfield’s life.
Winkler, Lisa K. “The Kentucky Derby’s Forgotten Jockeys.” Smithsonian.com, April 24, 2009. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/The -Kentucky-Derbys-Forgotten-Jockeys.html. A statistics-filled history of African American jockeys in the United States, with a focus on the Kentucky Derby.