What they both encountered is particularly instructive for us, especially after the sudden and tragic losses of jockeys Alex Canchari a few weeks ago and Avery Whisman in early January. Their deaths serve as a living reminder about the fragile and destructive nature of inner pain. As mourning for the 29-year-old Canchari and 23-year-old Whisman takes its course, perhaps what's helpful at this point is to try and take a step towards making sense of it all. By no means does that guarantee a panacea, but what we do know is that different mediums can help us digest, reflect, learn and process.

Murphy's Weight

First, Mooney's forthcoming monograph entitled, Isaac Murphy: The Rise and Fall of a Black Jockey published by Yale University's Black Lives series, covers fresh ground concerning the life of a rider who transcended race in Jim Crow America as he won impressively against white jockeys at racetracks from New York to Kentucky to California in the 1880s and into the 90s. As Mooney so eloquently and sadly described in her excellent Race Horse Men: How Slavery and Freedom Were Made at the Racetrack (2014), Black horsemen were driven from the sport as new laws were passed affirming the power of white rule. They never returned, but to this day, they have not been forgotten. If you have not read it and you love this sport, you are missing something.

Isaac Murphy: The Rise and Fall of a Black Jockey by Katherine C. Mooney | Yale University Press

This time the author focuses her attention on Murphy, a celebrated athlete who as a household name, inspired people from different racial and socio-economic backgrounds to root for him. That was the public form of his persona, the one where his ability to effectively cross the color line was based in what appeared to be a bottomless pit filled with drive and determination as he won. With a come-from-the-clouds riding style, which reserved his mount's strength until the last possible moment, Murphy's final approach thrilled the masses.

Mooney also gives a window into the private person who rarely gave interviews or left much of a record concerning his health. That might be just as instructive because throughout his life aboard some of the best Thoroughbreds in North America, he continually battled “making weight.”

Tenny with jockey Isaac Murphy | Keeneland Library

It took its toll.

Not just a seasonal rider, Murphy traversed the country working as often as he could under contract for a specific owner, supplemented by freelancing. Though he garnered what today would be the equivalent to million-dollar earnings, he continually scrambled throughout his riding days to go from 140 pounds all the way down to a dangerously low 110.

Mooney tells us, despite his successes, the regularly mentioned three Derby wins stat, et cetera, that Murphy was plagued later in his career by innuendo that he rode under the influence of alcohol. Racing in the 1890 running of New Jersey's own Monmouth Handicap aboard the seasoned mare Firenze as the favorite at 6-5, the pair ended up last with the jockey falling off after he crossed the wire. Shock and awe fell over the capacity crowd and in a subsequent hearing, Murphy explained that he had skipped breakfast that morning, drinking a few milk punches, regularly understood to be medicinal during the age. Later that day, with his wife by his side in the grandstand, he got down ginger ale and mineral water, in what was hardly the stuff for a balanced diet.

Author Katherine Mooney | Christopher T. Martin

Despite his impressive horsemanship, just to get into the saddle took a monumental effort to fight time and his own metabolic rate. Murphy had the desire and knew that back home in Lexington, Kentucky, his family was relying on him to provide. In the end, it was heart failure that ended his life at the age of 35-years-old. The demands of the profession exacted a terrible price. As Mooney prophetically explains, “Jockeys were ultimately dependent on the people that employed them.”

Montano's Stage

Like Isaac Murphy, Robert Montano was born for a stage. As a dancer and actor from the playhouse to the screen, he's worked with the likes of Chita Rivera to Mark Wahlberg. Growing up in Hempstead, New York in the 1970s with parents who dared their kids to dream, one afternoon his mother took the 12-year-old to Belmont Park. She told her son they were there to “pick out tiles for the kitchen floor,” code for a hopeful wagering result. Montano was captivated by the pomp and circumstance. Immediately, seeing the reverence held for the jockey colony, he was hooked.

“Working and learning from those professionals had such an impact on me, and their toughness and discipline set me on a path I am still on today,” he said. “Robert Pineda taught me about balance in the saddle and he really took me under his wing as a teenager, giving me a shot to ride.”

Robert Montano working a horse as an exercise rider | Robert Montano

Montano's ticket to the backside was a neighbor and his wife who both worked at nearby Belmont Park. They got him a job cutting carrots, which is where everyone begins. Eventually, he graduated to exercising riding there and at nearby Aqueduct Racetrack, but the life that was running concurrently with his high school days was anything but normal.

Like every budding apprentice, the fresh-faced young man agonized over his weight. His commitment pushed him to do endless laps around his neighborhood, while later he sweated in the local YMCA sauna clothed in jackets and sweaters, as burly guys looked on in astonishment. Still, he dreamed about donning silks that would make him a full-fledged member of the New York racing colony.

Just like the professional dancer he would become, health became an all-encompassing focal point for Montano. He was tempted though by the darker side of losing weight as he sought out the “Doc” who saw patients near the local Argo Theater. Appetite suppressants were downed and when his art professor father found out, he told his son, “No more, this is not how to pursue your dreams.”

With Pineda serving as mentor, he finally got his first mount in an actual race at the ripe age of 16. It was March 2, 1977. But there was a problem. That morning at Belmont he fell off a horse during training and badly bruised his ribs. At the Emergency Room, he begged the attending physician to patch him up, and pleaded his case with his parents who wore worried looks. Put back together and heavily bandaged, he made it in time for the race, finishing last. “Despite some serious pain, that was a huge moment for me and I loved every minute of it,” he said.

Robert Montano heads to the post | Robert Montano

Montano only rode six other times, never in-the-money, and though time and genetics were against him, those experiences put him on another track. At the age of 20, he earned a scholarship at New York's Adelphi University to enter the world of dance and theater, another place where showmanship is held in high-esteem.

As his new career blossomed, he came across a director who asked him about his first love. “The racetrack,” he said, without hesitation. “You should write something about that experience,” the director told him. So, after years of writing and delving into feelings that he had not touched since those early days, he did.

Robert Montano on the stage at Adelphi University | Robert Montano

This week on the campus of Kean University in Hillside, New Jersey, Montano's SMALL, which premiered at the Penguin Rep Theatre in Stony Point, New York last year, will take the stage. Performing 24 different parts, he will morph and change into the characters that surrounded his life as he pointed towards adulthood. As he says, “SMALL is about my duty to give the audience an authenticity and it is the chance to honor those that are associated with this great sport.”

With a title that is purposely capitalized, Montano's play examines his personal struggles to stay small, as he fought addiction and to find his place in the world. Now a performer of a different sort, he lends his own perspective from the saddle in the form a play. Using the visceral experiences of his youth, SMALL has the opportunity to loom large.

The Fight to Ride

Whether jockeys ride seven races or 7,000, they are bound by the pursuit of a profession that demands abject discipline. While the job offered the opportunity to stoke pure unadulterated talent, both Katherine Mooney's biography of Isaac Murphy and Robert Montano's SMALL, suggest how the challenges aboard a horse are balanced by their love of the racetrack. Lest we forget, sadly Alex Canchari and Avery Whisman's lives ended pursuing passions while trying to cope with inner pain. As those in the irons pass into our memories, we would do well to remember that their struggles are real and not the stuff of fiction. Both of these mediums might be just what we need at this juncture, as they suggest that across a swath of time that the names may change, but what Montano so aptly calls, “The fight to ride,” remains.

Isaac Murphy: The Rise and Fall of a Black Jockey by Katherine Mooney, Yale University Press, 177 pages, photos, appendix, glossary, May 2023.

SMALL by Robert Montano, co-presented by Premiere Stages and Kean Stage, directed by Jessi D. Hill, Saturday, March 18 at Kean University's Enlow Recital Hall, 215 North Avenue, Hillside, NJ 07205.

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The racetrack can be a special place.

In the last year alone, I've been fortunate enough to see some wonderful things, from talking with Barbara Livingston and Sarah Andrew at morning workouts, to watching William Buick win races at Newmarket's July Festival and again at Saratoga. I would argue that one of my most memorable days of racing was a reggae-filled afternoon during the Joe Hirsch Turf Invitational card last October at the Belmont at Aqueduct meet.

Until Saturday.

The Winter Festival at Laurel Park was set up to be a festive race day, complete with activities for kids, Mardi Gras, and $900,000 in stakes races. That was enough to perk my interest.  Just a few days before the Winter Festival, 1/ST racing announced a tribute to Avery Whisman. I felt a need to attend. Fighting mental health struggles is incomprehensibly difficult. Attending would be an opportunity to be a part of something bigger than myself, as they say. Enough so, that I left work, in Maine and traveled overnight to make the 12:25 post time.

To be honest, I didn't expect much. I just wanted to be in attendance. I knew there would be black armbands and a moment of silence. Perhaps a few jockeys would stand in the winner's circle during the moment of silence.

Unassumingly, I ventured on to the apron for the post-parade for the fifth race. I made my way over to the winner's circle in anticipation of the events that would follow.

Turns out I wasn't the only one. Either a lot of people also gathered around to show their respect, or this was going to be a much bigger event.

Before the race began, standing near the winner's circle, I noticed a woman crying and holding a child. I asked her if by chance she was related to Avery. Indeed, she was. I asked her if I could tell her a small story when the race was over. Surprisingly, after the race, she turned to me. I said to her, with tears welling, “Avery saved a life today.” The rest of the conversation will forever remain unspoken, but she needed to know that he made a difference today.

The event was huge! Throngs of people flooded the main track. It seemed like the entire crowd filtered down the winner's circle steps. A few near me started talking about the difficulties of our own mental health recoveries. A grace perhaps, since that was one of the reasons people showed up. If a community of horse people and racetrack employees could constitute a family, then Avery had a very large family–one in which everyone at the track wanted, or was, a part of, if even for a few moments.

It was almost too perfect, then, when Eastern Bay held his position to win easily in this year's edition of the GIII General George. The 13-time winner looked as clean as a wire-to-wire derby winner as he crossed the line. Again, floods of people swarmed the winner's circle. Tears flowed, mixed with smiles as Avery Whisman's highest earner came back for the photo. Some were visibly overwhelmed. And why not?  Some things are just meant to be. Especially at 7-1.

How fitting. Poetic, perhaps. Nonetheless, how perfect?

I'd never been to a race day where a celebration of life was so apparent. All those connected to Avery were surrounded by love, not just from family, but from the patrons who surrounded them, eager to share their love too.

There are no words that can explain to what extent a person will struggle to do what they love most. For Avery, it was horses and riding. For some of us, it's teaching. For others, it's simply trying to be someone important in the eyes of another. Most of that pain is never spoken of for fear of upsetting or losing the ones we love. People find it hard to understand thus, keeping things quiet is even more necessary.

Racing can be a beautiful game. Like our own lives, as much as there is joy, there is also darkness. Avery knew the darkness. Yet, today, on a gorgeous winter afternoon, his light lit up the hearts of every race fan in attendance.

Today was an event that many will hold in their hearts forever.

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The 1/ST properties: Laurel Park, Gulfstream Park, Santa Anita and Golden Gate, will all participate and Laurel Park, where Whisman rode primarily in 2019-2020, will have a race named in his honor on its Feb. 18 Winter Carnival program. Jockeys, family and friends will gather in the Laurel winner's circle following the race and observe the moment of silence.

Whisman's parents, Lyman and Salli, said, “We are so very proud of our son and all he accomplished in his short life. In the future, we hope to raise awareness and empower dialogue within the racing industry around gaps in needed health and mental health support for its jockey athletes.”

Mike Rogers, acting president of the Maryland Jockey Club, said, “Mental health is a critical aspect of overall well-being, no matter your age or profession. It's important for individuals to prioritize and take care of their mental health, and it's important for us to reach out to those who may show signs of needing help.”

Terry Meyocks, President and CEO of Jockeys' Guild said, “The Jockeys' Guild sincerely appreciates 1/ST Racing bringing attention to the important issues of mental health and other health related challenges affecting jockeys. These are struggles that jockeys and the Guild have dealt with on a continual basis.”

Laurel will also distribute hats and T-shirts for a donation to the Permanently Disabled Jockeys Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity that provides financial assistance to 60 former jockeys who have suffered catastrophic on-track injuries. Since its founding in 2006, the PDJF has disbursed nearly $11 million.

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