Isaac Burns Murphy

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For the American politician, see Isaac Murphy.
Isaac Burns Murphy
IsaacMurphy.jpg
Isaac B. Murphy, c.1885
OccupationJockey
Born(1861-04-16)April 16, 1861
Fayette County, Kentucky, U.S.
DiedFebruary 12, 1896(1896-02-12) (aged 34)
Lexington, Kentucky, U.S.
Resting placeAfrican Cemetery No. 2, Lexington, Kentucky, U.S.
Career wins628 (or 530: see text)
Major racing wins
Clark Handicap (1879, 1884, 1885, 1890)
Travers Stakes (1879)
Saratoga Cup (1881, 1886)
Latonia Derby (1883, 1884, 1885, 1886, 1891)
American Derby (1884, 1885, 1886, 1888)
Illinois Derby (1884)
Kentucky Oaks (1884)
Alabama Stakes (1885, 1889)
Champion Stakes (1886, 1890)
First Special Stakes (1887, 1888, 1889)
Brooklyn Derby (1888)
Foam Stakes (1888)
Second Special Stakes (1888)
Jerome Handicap (1889)
Freehold Stakes (1890)
Suburban Handicap (1890)
Tidal Stakes (1890)
Gazelle Handicap (1892)
Mermaid Stakes (1892)

American Classic Race wins:
Kentucky Derby (1884, 1890, 1891)

Honours
United States Racing Hall of Fame (1955)
Isaac Murphy Award
Isaac Murphy Handicap at Arlington Park
Significant horses
Buchanan, Emperor of Norfolk, Falsetto,
Firenze, Kingman, Kingston, Leonatus, Riley,
Salvator, Silver Cloud

Isaac Burns Murphy (April 16, 1861 – February 12, 1896) was an American Hall of Fame jockey, who is considered one of the greatest riders in American Thoroughbred horse racing history. Murphy won three runnings of the Kentucky Derby.

Biography[]

Isaac Burns Murphy was born April 16, 1861 in Fayette County, Kentucky, born to free Black parents.[1] He began racing in 1875.[1][2]

Murphy rode in eleven Kentucky Derbies, winning three times: on Buchanan in 1884, Riley in 1890, and Kingman in 1891. Kingman was owned by Jacobin Stables (co-owners, Preston Kinzea Stone and Dudley Allen) and trained by Dudley Allen, and is the first horse co-owned by an African-American to win the Derby. Murphy is the only jockey to have won the Kentucky Derby, the Kentucky Oaks, and the Clark Handicap in the same year (1884). He was called the "Colored Archer," a reference to Fred Archer, a prominent English jockey at the time.

According to his own calculations, Murphy won 628 of his 1,412 starts—a 44% victory rate which has never been equaled, and a record about which Hall of Fame jockey Eddie Arcaro said: "There is no chance that his record of winning will ever be surpassed.[3] By a later calculation of incomplete records, his record stands at 530 wins in 1,538 rides, which still makes his win rate 34%.[4] Isaac Burns Murphy was the first jockey to be inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame at its creation in 1955.[5]

Death and legacy[]

Murphy died of heart failure in 1896 in Lexington, Kentucky, and over time his unmarked grave in African Cemetery No. 2 was forgotten. During the 1960s, Frank B. Borries Jr., a University of Kentucky press specialist, spent three years searching for the grave site. In 1967, Murphy was reinterred at the old Man o' War burial site.[3] With the building of the Kentucky Horse Park, his remains were moved to be buried again next to Man o' War at the entrance to the park.[3]

In 1955, he was inducted into the Jockey's Hall of Fame at Saratoga, New York.[2] In 1940, Murphy was honored with one of the 33 dioramas featured at the American Negro Exposition in Chicago.[6] Since 1995, the National Turf Writers Association has given the Isaac Murphy Award to the jockey with the highest winning percentage for the year in North American racing (from a minimum of 500 mounts).

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b "Isaac Burns Murphy, American jockey". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2021-03-26.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b "Isaac Burns Murphy, Horse Jokey born". African American Registry. Retrieved 2021-03-26.
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b c Reed, David (May 5, 1967). "High Tributes Paid To Murphy". The Lexington Herald – via University of Kentucky.
  4. ^ Hotaling, Edward (1999). The Great Black Jockeys: The Lives and Times of the Men Who Dominated America's First National Sport. Three Rivers Press. p. 272. ISBN 978-1400080700 – via Google Books.
  5. ^ Isaac Murphy at the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame Archived 2011-01-23 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 2011-08-26.
  6. ^ "American Negro Exposition 1863-1940, July 4 to Sept. 2, 1940, Chicago, IL" (PDF). Living History of Illinois.

External links[]

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