Harding Jockeys & Grooms
During the time of slavery, it was easier for plantation owners to have their enslaved workers take care of the horses than to pay someone. If these slaves showed talent, they would advance to higher positions, including jockey, groom, or trainer. These slaves were given a higher status, better treatment for these skills and had more personal freedom, opportunity to travel, and better clothes and food. The most famous African American jockey of the 1800s was Isaac Murphy, who is thought to be one of the greatest jockeys in American racing history. He won three Kentucky Derbies and forty-four percent of all races he entered, a record that has not been rivaled in recent history. Unfortunately, he died at the age of thirty-four of pneumonia, cutting his successful career short. Today he rests next to the famous horse Man O’ War in the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington. After Murphy’s success, the reliance of African American jockeys dwindled, and their status declined to that of stable help. Today more blacks are interested in racing, and they are finally regaining the status they held more than one hundred years ago.
Many jockeys after growing older, larger, and thus too big to ride became trainers. One trainer, Ed Brown of Louisville, Kentucky, trained the 1877 winner of the Kentucky Derby. He owned his own racehorses and was said to be the richest African-American man in Louisville at his death in 1906.
The people who were the jockeys, trainers, and groomsmen at Belle Meade were also responsible for the farm’s success. From the start in 1807, the Harding family had slaves. By the 1810s they were becoming skilled at working with the horses. Most jockeys were slaves, young boys between the ages 8 and 12 with the perfect lightweight size for riding racehorses. These boys received preferential treatment and were able to travel the country. There is evidence that William Giles Harding was the trainer at Belle Meade, but he may have had help from some slaves on the property or white trainers he hired temporarily. In 1839 General Harding brought a young enslaved boy to work at Belle Meade. His name was Robert “Bob” Green. As he grew up working with the horses, he became General Harding’s right hand and was an expert in everything related to the Thoroughbred. At the end of the war, Bob continued to work for the horse farm, and according to an 1879 ledger book in the Belle Meade archives, he was the highest paid worker on the farm as the head hostler or groom. Bob Green became famous for his horse knowledge, and it has been said that many a gentleman in the horse business owed a debt of gratitude to Bob for his knowledge at the yearling sales. The head groom at Belle Meade always wore a white apron, and Green was seen wearing his apron even in New York City. Bob was introduced to President Grover Cleveland during his visit in 1887, and Bob led President Cleveland on a tour of the stud, including profiles of Iroquois, Bramble, Enquirer, Luke Blackburn, Great Tom.
Read more about this topic: Belle Meade Plantation
Famous quotes containing the words harding and/or grooms:
“To be perfectly honest, what I’m really thinking about are dollar signs.”
—Tonya Harding (b. 1970)
“Life is crazy. Now, maybe you knew this all along. But before I had children, I actually held on to the illusion that there was some sense of order to the universe.... I am now convinced that we are all living in a Chagall painting—a world where brides and grooms and cows and chickens and angels and sneakers are all mixed up together, sometimes floating in the air, sometimes upside down and everywhere.”
—Susan Lapinski (20th century)