Isaac Murphy

Hall of Fame

⭐ National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame

Isaac Burns Murphy was born on January 1, 1861, in Frankfort, Kentucky, the son of a formerly enslaved man who died as a Union soldier during the Civil War. Murphy was apprenticed to a local horse trainer as a teenager and rode his first professional race in 1875. Over the next two decades he became the most celebrated jockey in America — a distinction that was all the more remarkable given that he achieved it as a Black man in the post-Reconstruction South. He won the Kentucky Derby three times: in 1884 (Buchanan), 1890 (Riley), and 1891 (Kingman), the first jockey ever to win three Kentucky Derbies. His career win percentage of approximately 44% — meaning he won nearly half of every race he entered — is a figure that no jockey before or since has matched at comparable volume. He was the first American athlete to win a world championship in his sport, claiming the American Derby in 1882. His partnership with leading horse owners and trainers of the era earned him unheard-of fees and made him one of the wealthiest professional athletes in America at his peak. The racial violence and social upheaval of the 1890s effectively pushed Black jockeys out of thoroughbred racing, and Murphy died in 1896 at age 34-35, his health deteriorated by weight-cutting and hard riding. He was buried in Lexington, and his story was largely forgotten until historians began the work of recovering the contributions of Black athletes to American sports. He was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1955 as a member of its inaugural class. Born in Frankfort, Kentucky.