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With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, usracing.com contributor and award-winning author Maryjean Wall recollects the liberty journey of two-time Kentucky Derby profitable jockey Jimmy Winkfield. Starting in 1919, Winkfield fled Moscow for Odessa, then Poland, after which France. Born in Kentucky, Winkfield gained the Derby in 1901 and 1902, and later moved to Moscow the place he loved fame and fortune earlier than the Bolshevik Revolution despatched him fleeing.
By Maryjean Wall
Residents of Odessa awakened final week to rocket explosions of their resort metropolis in southwest Ukraine – evocative of jockey Jimmy Winkfield’s expertise greater than a century beforehand.
The bombing of Odessa is a reminder that horse racing isn’t faraway from world occasions, and that historical past repeats itself. Winkfield escaped Moscow someday after the Bolshevik Revolution started. He went southwest to Odessa the place racing was nonetheless occurring and he thought he can be protected from the Bolsheviks. He was so fallacious.
Jimmy Winkfield – Photograph courtesy of Nellie Davis, Black Maestro, printed within the New York Occasions, Might 29, 2006.
On the morning of April 4, 1919, Winkfield heard weapons within the distance. The revolution was coming to Odessa. He rapidly gathered up some 250 thoroughbreds and numerous horsemen buddies who wished to go away. Collectively they drove the horses on a 1,100-mile freedom run to Poland. They didn’t have a straightforward time on the paths.
Winkfield figured he was a goal for the revolutionaries, and he was most likely proper. He was straightforward to identify, as a Black man, and well-known in Russia after profitable many of the nation’s main races. The horses he rode have been owned largely by the Czar’s inside circle of buddies, which might have put a bulls-eye on his again.
Again house in the US, Winkfield additionally was well-known. He had gained the Kentucky Derby two years in succession in 1901 and 1902, the primary jockey since Isaac Murphy to take action. However he noticed no future in America for a rider of his pores and skin colour. Racial prejudice and violence have been excessive. Winkfield’s variety of mounts declined radically. An American horseman racing in Russia supplied Winkfield a possibility to trip there and Winkfield took him up on the provide.
Russian bettors and horse homeowners quickly took to Winkfield, remarking favorably on his Blackness and his profitable methods within the saddle. The jockey lived the great life in Russia, eating on caviar and making his house in a set he bought at Moscow’s most luxurious lodge. He earned some $100,000 a 12 months, paid in rubles. He employed a white boy as his valet. He was having fun with the identical extreme life-style of the the Aristocracy that impressed the peasants to revolt. Astutely, he realized that he, just like the the Aristocracy, needed to get out.
At first, he left Moscow for Odessa, on the shore of the Black Sea, considering the revolutionaries wouldn’t go that far south. The observe in Odessa really was persevering with to supply racing, regardless of the revolution. So, Winkfield moved south. Then got here the April morning when he may hear gunfire off within the distance. This time he fled for his life.
Winkfield saddled one of many 250 thoroughbreds for himself. Winkfield was final heard saying as they departed Odessa, “This ain’t not a match place for a small coloured man from Chilesburg, Kentucky to be.”
He recollected that’s what he mentioned, when reconstructing his epic journey to Sports activities Illustrated in a 1961 article titled, “Across the World in 80 Years.”
With Winkfield within the lead, the little band of horses and males turned northwestward from Odessa. The climate remained wintry, particularly in mountains that the group needed to cross to achieve Poland. First, the group moved by means of Moldova. Then, the boys turned the horses westward to cross northern Romania. They went by means of the tip of Hungary. Ultimately they reached Poland. They have been protected finally, however Warsaw and its racetrack nonetheless lay miles forward, not on the border however within the central east a part of that nation.
The group’s flight by means of snow storms throughout rugged terrain had not gone properly. The boys and horses have been exhausted. Not all of the horses made it to Poland, for some have been killed for meals alongside the best way to ensure that the boys to outlive.
Jimmy Winkfield 1902 Kentucky Derby Churchill- Photograph courtesy of the Kentucky Derby
They reached Warsaw some three months after beginning on their journey. Winkfield remained in Warsaw for awhile, driving races within the Polish metropolis earlier than shifting to France in 1922. He was quickly driving winners once more, whereas changing into fluent in French, simply as he’d acquired fluency in Russian. For a farm boy raised close to Lexington, Winkfield revealed superb talents in linguistic pursuits in addition to in race-riding.
Winkfield grew to become vastly profitable in France, first as a jockey, then later, as a coach. But when he thought he’d gone on the lam for the final time, he was fallacious.
After France declared struggle on Germany, Winkfield left and returned to the US. America appeared no higher for him than when he’d left the nation. The nation was nonetheless segregated, nonetheless marked by racial prejudice and violence, and nobody appeared to recollect Winkfield. He couldn’t get mounts as a jockey, since Black jockeys not have been seen within the sport. He discovered work as an train rider at Aiken, South Carolina. It was the very best he may do till ultimately he was in a position to return to France. He died close to Paris, France, in 1974 at age 91. The younger Black man from Chilesburg had certainly had a really full life.
Maryjean Wall is the previous turf author for The Lexington Herald-Chief. She retired from that publication following a profession that spanned 4 many years and included three Eclipse Awards and an AP Sports activities Editors Award. She holds a Ph.D. in U. S. Historical past, has taught historical past at College of Kentucky, and continues to put in writing about horse racing as a free-lancer. She has been printed in Sports activities Illustrated, Wall Road Journal, Forbes Life, Cincinnati, and Keeneland, amongst different publications. She has authored two books centered on horses and racing: How Kentucky Grew to become Southern: a Story of Outlaws, Horse Thieves, Gamblers, and Breeders; additionally, Madam Belle: Intercourse, Cash, and Affect in a Southern Brothel. When she isn’t writing, she is photographing, all the time pursuing the artistic muse.
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