tom harbut | Horse Racing Free Tips

This Saturday at Churchill Downs, Greg Harbut and Ray Daniels will represent the first African-American ownership to take part in the Kentucky Derby in 13 years. However, leading up to this year's historic, delayed-by-pandemic edition of the Run for the Roses, Harbut has been contacted by civil rights activists about scratching his first Derby horse, Necker Island; a symbol to show he stands with Louisville, Ky.'s African-American community.

“I do agree that Black Lives Matter, and that there should be justice for Breonna Taylor,” Harbut told the Paulick Report last week.

Breonna Taylor's death at the hands of Louisville police back in March was one of the events that turned the city unto one of the country's hot spots for protesters seeking racial justice. Activists have urged Churchill officials to cancel the Kentucky Derby, but their pleas went unanswered as Churchill chose to go ahead with the event, albeit without fans in the stands. As such, several groups are planning protests on Kentucky Derby day: No Justice No Peace Louisville, Black Lives Matter Louisville, the Until Freedom group, and the NFAC, among others.

Those planned protests are getting national media attention as Derby Day draws ever-closer, from local and national news outlets, in the form of both news stories and editorials.

Harbut empathizes with the protesters, but he won't pass up a chance to stand in the grandstand to which his grandfather was unjustly denied access more than 50 years ago.

In 1962, Tom Harbut was the breeder and co-owner of Kentucky Derby contender Touch Bar, but his name didn't appear in the program and he wasn't allowed to watch the race from the grandstand; it was whites-only. (Touch Bar finished 11th that year)

“My grandfather bred the horse and owned part of him and, at the time, his role in what is one of the most prestigious races in the world was not acknowledged,” Harbut told the New York Times this week. “This is part of my family's legacy, and it is a chance to remind people on a big stage — the biggest stage — that horse racing history here begins with African-Americans.”

Fifteen of the first 28 Kentucky Derbies were won by African-American jockeys, beginning with Oliver Lewis in 1875 (Aristides), and six of the first 17 Kentucky Derby winners were conditioned by African-American trainers. That all changed in the mid-1900s, and it took 79 years for another African-American jockey to appear in the Kentucky Derby (from Henry King in 1921 to Marlon St. Julien in 2000).

As award-winning sports journalist Eric Crawford wrote for Louisville's wdrb.com, “This isn't yesterday. This is today. An entire race of people was wiped from involvement in the upper levels of the industry — and they have not returned. For a long time, the memory of those who did succeed in the Derby was forgotten. White-washed.”

Harbut hopes the visual of African-American ownership on racing's biggest stage will help draw more African-Americans back into the sport, but protesters and civil rights activists are hoping for a different image on this historic Kentucky Derby day. While calls to cancel the race have been unsuccessful, the protests planned for Saturday afternoon could continue to bring national attention to issues of social justice.

“The lack of fans has the potential to dull, just a little, the impact of these protests,” wrote Sam Fels for Deadspin. “The visual of protesters merely asking for racial equality juxtaposed with those adorned in Kentucky Derby hats sipping on juleps or meat-headed fratboys headed for the infield would have made for a striking illustration. It also would have been a likelier flashpoint between protestors and police, because it is unlikely that protesters would be allowed anywhere near attendees or the track. There would have been no way NBC could ignore what would have ensued.”

Churchill Downs acknowledged calls to cancel the Derby in a statement released Thursday, which is printed in full below.

“We know there are some who disagree with our decision to run the Kentucky Derby this year,” the statement read in part. “We respect that point of view but made our decision in the belief that traditions can remind us of what binds us together as Americans, even as we seek to acknowledge and repair the terrible pain that rends us apart.”

Meanwhile, the Louisville Metro Police Force will have an all-work day on duty to ensure that the Kentucky Derby event proceeds as planned on Saturday.

“To say the Kentucky Derby is a time of unity when it is the symbol of segregation in our city shows your lack of knowledge about reality,” a frustrated Jecorey Arthur, a local musician and Louisville Metro councilman-elect, told the Courier-Journal. “It's 2020, and if you look at the past 20 years of our inclusion or exclusion when it comes to Derby, we are still very much in the 1920s, still very much in the Jim Crow era.

“There's potential (for unity), but we can't get to that point until you acknowledge the injustice.”

Churchill's statement also acknowledged that “We are not doing enough, quickly enough,” and intimated that it plans to take “real, concrete action to address institutional roadblocks to progress,” but failed to lay out specifics.

“The effects of decisions 120 years ago still work to exclude Blacks from this industry that they once found great success in,” Crawford continued. “The sooner many of us not only acknowledge these injustices but recognize the current effects they have, the sooner we step toward a lasting solution.

“But it's going to take all of us. And many are going to have to crawl out of entrenched positions and walk forward for anything meaningful to happen.”

Churchill Downs released the following statement on Thursday, two days before the 2020 Kentucky Derby:

The Kentucky Derby has been run every year for the past 145 years. It is a great American tradition that has survived depressions, wars, pandemics and myriad changes in our country, large and small.

The first Derby was run just ten years after the end of the Civil War and the end of slavery in America. Over ninety years later, during the 1967 Derby, protesters took to the streets around Churchill Downs, demanding equality and change.

Today, more than fifty years after that, our fellow Kentuckians and fellow Americans are still asking to be heard; for all of us to understand the ongoing inequality that exists, and finally to adopt meaningful change.

We are not doing enough, quickly enough. That is true in our country, in our city and in our sport.

We know there are some who disagree with our decision to run the Kentucky Derby this year. We respect that point of view but made our decision in the belief that traditions can remind us of what binds us together as Americans, even as we seek to acknowledge and repair the terrible pain that rends us apart.

Our sport shares a disconcerting history that led to the exclusion of Black jockey participation through the years. The legacy of the Kentucky Derby begins with the incredible success of Black jockeys. We feel it is imperative to acknowledge the painful truths that led to their exclusion. Churchill Downs strongly believes in preserving and sharing the stories of the Black jockeys who are a critical part of this tradition. This is not a new commitment, but we continue to seek ways to share these stories and honor these athletes.

Our goal has always been that the Kentucky Derby and the way it is observed throughout the city should be inclusive of the entire Louisville community. However, we hear the calls to do more and we have challenged ourselves to do so. We hear the voices that tell us we have not successfully created an environment in which everyone feels welcome or included. That is not acceptable and we need to do more to ensure that our best intentions become a reality. We need to do more, now, to ensure that every member of our community is a part of our traditions. Churchill Downs is committed to engaging in the hard conversations in our city, our sport and within our own organization. We are committed to taking real, concrete action to address institutional roadblocks to progress and playing our part in advancing the changes America so desperately needs.

We recognize that people in our community and across our nation are hurting right now. The atmosphere of the Kentucky Derby will be different this year as we respond to those calls for change. This will be a Derby unlike any other. As it should be.

The post Churchill Issues Statement On Racial Justice As Planned Protests Draw National Attention appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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I spend a lot of time these days thinking about Gene Carter. I was fortunate enough to meet the 'last man to ride Man o' War,' as he was billed by myself and others, before his death last fall. Carter had an undeniable magic with horses, which was still evident when I spoke to him just after his 93^rd birthday. He was working his retirement gig, showing the likes of Funny Cide, Point Given, Go For Gin, and others at the Kentucky Horse Park's Hall of Champions.

I had the impression that Carter's only real regret about his long career as an exercise rider and groom in Central Kentucky was that he was never able to get a jockey's license. He won his lone start, an amateur race on a farm. The margin wasn't close. From what he told me, it was helped that he knew his horse like the back of his hand because they'd spent many mornings together.

I knew that horse racing's early history had included many black jockeys (though I didn't realize just how many until I researched Edward Brown, who eventually became one of several successful black trainers also). I also knew that I didn't see so many in the saddle these days and couldn't remember reading about many after about the 1920s. I had never been too sure why that was, so I timidly asked Gene about it.

Carter told me that in the days he was longing to enter the starting gates in a race, Jim Crow was alive and well. Black riders could not get licenses in the 1950s and 1960s in some places. Successful jockeys could make real money, and he suspected that wasn't something the sport's white gatekeepers were comfortable with, especially in the South. He did have a trainer who, impressed with his work in the mornings, pledged to take him to New York and vouch for him to be licensed there. Unfortunately, the trainer died of a heart attack the week before they were scheduled to make the trip, and there went his opportunity.

So many of us want to believe we are horse whisperers, but too often we're not as good as we wish at either speaking or listening to them. The best most of us can hope for is to sharpen our skills with practice, but we can never quite match someone with the natural gift. I've only ever seen a handful of horsemen who possess an innate aura of calm authority that instantly softens a horse's eye and relaxes them. Those are the people who can, seemingly without trying, soothe the nervous horse and coax out the cautious. I didn't see Carter ride, but he did tell me about how he figured out the key to difficult horses very early – by speaking to them, and assuming they could understand him. Not a popular concept at the time, and one that enabled him to get on the barn's tougher horses with success. If his ground work is anything to go by, he would have been one of those riders I envy and one horses love.

That Carter wasn't allowed to get his jockey's license for something as arbitrary as the color of his skin was and is outrageously wrong and unfair to him. It was also a great loss for the sport, and more importantly, a great loss for the horses who could have benefitted from having a partner like him in a race. Horses, after all, care about what's in your heart and what's in your brain, and not your race or ethnicity.

Since the time when Carter was refused a license, most people say there are fewer and fewer black jockeys and trainers (though they are by no means absent). Through the years, newspaper and magazine writers have questioned why that may be, and whether black horsemen have felt excluded by the sport.

As with any complex question, there is no single answer. Some interview subjects told stories of their experiences with overt racism in the Thoroughbred industry, while others said they never felt singled out or treated differently.

The children of Will Harbut (who would become Gene Carter's father-in-law) remember how famous Harbut's connection with Man o' War was. But, in a Lexington Herald-Leader feature from 2001, one of them also remembered that Harbut was asked not to attend Man o' War's 21^st birthday party.

“They said, 'Will, you eat first,' [separately from others attending the dinner]” Tom Harbut told writer Maryjean Wall. “Well, it's embarrassing. That shows, 'I can tell hello to you but I don't want to sit down with you. My mother wouldn't go. In those days, the only time they wanted to see you was when you were working. Otherwise you hide yourself.”

Tom followed his father into the horse business, working as a groom and exercise rider and eventually serving as stallion manager at Spendthrift Farm.

Wall also interviewed Dick Spiller, who worked as a groom and got his trainer's license in California while working for Cy White. Although Spiller remembered how harrowing it was to ship horses around the country in a time of segregation, he felt respected by the horsemen he worked with.

“To tell you the truth about it, I wasn't bothered about segregation too much because the people I came under, like Cy White, I never did feel like a segregated person,” Spiller told Wall. “And he didn't consider me segregated. He was a wonderful man to be around.”

A report from the Louisville Courier-Journal in 2000 highlighted the career of William Skiles Sr just before his retirement from Churchill Downs, where he started as a waiter in 1946. Kentucky tracks didn't hire black mutuel tellers for another two decades, and according to the article, Skiles was the first. Still, he didn't consider himself a pioneer.

“I was treated no differently than any other clerks,” he told writer Mark Coomes. “If [white co-workers] felt different about me, they didn't show it.”

According to a report in the Daily Racing Form, the first black head starter wasn't hired in America until Rick Walker was named to the position at Thistledown in 2004. The track also saw the country's first black racing official in 1982, and its first black steward in 1986.

That wasn't so long ago.

Recent comments from well-known bloodstock agent Tom VanMeter have sparked a new discussion about race in horse racing. They're proof that racist sentiments are still present in our sport, as they are in the greater world. Jim Crow may be gone, black riders can be licensed as jockeys, but that doesn't mean our sport has resolved its issues with race. I can't pretend to understand all the reasons why there are fewer black horsemen in our sport than there once were, but I would venture to guess racing may not feel like a comfortable environment for some. There were likely children who grew up hearing about their parents' experiences as trainers, grooms, exercise riders and justifiably thought, 'That doesn't seem like a space where I'd be valued.'

First and foremost, those in power in horse racing (who are almost uniformly white men) should care about this because they should want people to be treated with respect and kindness in our little corner of the world. They should recognize that diverse viewpoints and experiences at all levels can only make our sport better. Besides basic human decency, we should also want to do the best we can for the horse, who is supposed to be at the center of everything. It does the horse no good for generational knowledge to be lost or for good horsemen not to be given opportunities to rise through the ranks to become trainers, owners, board members, track management.

Everyone can play a part in making our sport a more welcoming place for all. For us at the Paulick Report, that means continuing to tell the stories of BIPOC (black/indigenous/people of color) in our industry, bringing their forgotten history to light, and seeking to amplify BIPOC voices when we look for contributors to our publication. We have done some good work on these points, but we can and should do more. I challenge others to think about what they can do to increase diversity in their segment of the sport. Do it for your fellow human, and do it for the horse.

The post Racing Diversity: Why We Must Do Better, And Why Horses Are Counting On Us appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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