Willie Simms

Jockey

• Born: January 16, 1870
• Birthplace: near Augusta, Georgia
• Died: February 26, 1927 February 26, 1927
• Place of death: Asbury, New Jersey

Generally regarded as the greatest African American jockey of his era and perhaps in the history of the United States, Simms won the Kentucky Derby twice, doing so in both 1896 and 1898. He also was the first African American to earn victories in the Triple Crown of racing.

Early Life

Born in the hostile racial environment of the antebellum South, Willie Simms was afforded limited opportunities for advancement in society and grew up during a period of mass migration of southern African Americans to the North. Little is known of Simms’s upbringing other than that he reportedly was attracted to horse racing because of an affinity for the colorful uniforms worn by jockeys. Unlike in other organized sports and most segments of society, African Americans had an undeniable presence in horse racing: In the generations before Simms’s birth, many slaves were employed as jockeys; at the first Kentucky Derby, held in 1875, fourteen of the fifteen jockeys were African American, including the winner, Oliver Lewis; and by the 1890’s, the decade in which Simms rose to fame, the first generation of free-born African Americans dominated the sport. In the 1896 Kentucky Derby, for example, the majority of the competing jockeys were African American.

Reflecting the general migratory trends of the time, Simms left Georgia without the permission of his parents in 1891, heading for New York, where he was hired by Philip J. Dwyer, who, along with his brother Michael, owned thoroughbred horses. At barely one hundred pounds but with a reputation for performing well on mediocre horses, Simms began racing at Saratoga, New York, riding the horse Promenade to victory at the 1891 Spinaway. He finished his first year in New York ranked fifth in the United States among jockeys and continued his successful foray into big-time racing the following year. In 1892, Simms won the Flatbush Stakes on Lady Violet, the Tidal Stakes aboard Charade, and the First Special and the Second Special races with Lamplighter; he rose to the position of number-two jockey in the country.

Life’s Work

Signaling his rise to prominence in 1893, Simms signed a lucrative twelve-thousand-dollar, one-year contract with Pierre Lorillard, the owner of the Rancocas stud farm in Jobstown, New Jersey, and Tuxedo Park in Orange County, New York. Lorillard’s investment proved to be a sound one: Of Simms’s 182 wins in 1893, his most significant was aboard Comanche at the Belmont Stakes, one of the Triple Crown events. By the end of the year, Simms was considered the finest jockey in the United States, claiming the first of consecutive national championships. In 1894, Simms repeated as the winner at Belmont, this time riding Henry of Navarre. He won numerous other races, including the Dwyer Stakes, the Swift Stakes, the Tidal Stakes, the Juvenile Stakes, the First Special and the Second Special, and the Lawrence Realization.

Although Simms was one of the wealthiest jockeys in the United States in 1895—earning approximately twenty thousand dollars, a considerable sum that allowed him to invest in real estate and buy a home in Georgia replete with horse stable and gymnasium—he spent a portion of the year in England, forever influencing horsemanship in that country. Accompanying Philip Dwyer, who had dissolved his partnership with his brother, Simms continued to race at the top of the field. Although England ostensibly did not have the entrenched or institutionalized racism of the United States in the late nineteenth century, Simms nonetheless was derided when he debuted at Newmarket on April 16, 1895. However, mockery shifted to a begrudging acceptance when Simms won the race.

Simms’s most significant, albeit disputed, contribution to English racing was his introduction of the American style of racing, in which the jockey leaned forward, arched his back toward the horse’s neck, and placed his feet into shortened stirrups. In the English riding style, jockeys sat upright and extended their legs to stirrups placed significantly lower. The English were at first outraged by the American style but later warmed to it in part because Tod Sloan, a white American jockey who employed the technique, came to England and became a personal friend of the prince of Wales. The English credited Sloan with introducing the riding style in their country, an indication of the attitudes toward race at the time. Certainly Simms did not invent the technique, which originated in the colonial quarter races and also was used by some American Indians, but most historians agree that Simms did introduce the technique to the British.

After returning to the United States, Simms finished the 1895 season strongly, collecting wins in the Jerome Stakes and the Champagne Stakes. Riding Ben Brush, a horse owned by Dwyer, Simms entered the 1896 Kentucky Derby as one of the favorites, and his expert horsemanship helped contribute to one of the most exciting Kentucky Derbys of the era. Ben Brush stumbled out of the starting gates, and Simms summoned all his strength to stay on the horse and pull it back up; at the first turn, Ben Brush had moved into fourth place. As Ben Brush raced in front of the grandstand opposite the starting line, it moved into second place, but Ben Eder, ridden by J. Tabor, made a dash to catch up with the leaders; Ben Brush and Ben Eder were neck and neck at the finish. Simms used his expertise and Ben Brush’s courage to cross the finish line a nose ahead of Ben Eder and Tabor; thus, Simms became the first jockey to win the Kentucky Derby at its modern distance of 1.25 miles.

Although he did not win the following Kentucky Derby, Simms rode Ben Brush to numerous victories in 1897. In the 1898 Kentucky Derby, the field was limited to four, and Simms, atop Plaudit, a horse trained by African American Ed Brown, battled rival Tom Burns, who rode the favorite, Lieber Karl. As the horses neared the finish line, Lieber Karl began to pull away from Plaudit, and Simms later admitted he thought the race was lost. However, Simms, almost unconsciously and in opposition to his general philosophy about how to coax a horse to the finish, began whipping Plaudit furiously. Passing Burns and Lieber Karl, Simms piloted his horse to another photo-finish victory at Churchill Downs. Simms never raced in another Kentucky Derby, but he did win the Preakness Stakes on Sly Fox later in the year, completing the career Triple Crown.

Simms finished his exemplary career with 1,125 wins; he won nearly 25 percent of his races. After retiring from competitive racing, he trained thoroughbred horses for steeplechases and other races. He died in 1927 and was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1977.

Significance

In 1896, the year Simms first won the Kentucky Derby, the Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Ferguson essentially institutionalized the “separate but equal” status of African Americans. Given this climate, it is remarkable that the majority of the most successful jockeys of the era were African American; the top among them was Simms. Horse racing was the only integrated sport at the time—baseball had established de facto segregation in 1885, a policy that was not abolished until 1947—and enabled African Americans to gain some footing in mainstream American culture and a level of autonomy not afforded in other sectors of society. In the annals of American sports, Simms often is overlooked, a result of both the color of his skin and the fading significance of horse racing in general. However, Simms was the top jockey of his era and the greatest African American jockey in the history of the sport.

Bibliography

Hotaling, Edward. The Great Black Jockeys: The Lives and Times of the Men Who Dominated America’s First National Sport. Rocklin, Calif.: Forum, 1999. Charts the contribution of African Americans in the rise of horse racing in the nineteenth century, comparing the racial attitudes of the day with the unique place black jockeys held in American society. Chapter on Simms outlines his biography and discusses his place among the history of black jockeys.

Rust, Art, and Edna Rust. Art Rust’s Illustrated History of the Black Athlete. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1985. Provides biographical sketches of prominent African Americans in sports, including Simms, and provides a history of the major American sports.

Saunders, James Robert, and Monica Renae Saunders. Black Winning Jockeys in the Kentucky Derby. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2003. Contains biographies of the African Americans who have won the Kentucky Derby, beginning with Oliver Lewis, who won the inaugural event in 1875.