Popular rider Oliver Lewis rode H. P. McGrath’s thoroughbred Aristides to victory in the first Kentucky Derby on May 17, 1875, at the Louisville Jockey Club. Continue reading.
The pair won by a reported two lengths, setting a new American record time for a mile-and-a-half race. Fourteen of the fifteen jockeys in the derby, including Lewis, were African Americans.
Lewis was born in Fayette County, Kentucky in 1856. After his death in 1924 he was buried in Benevolent Society No. 2 Cemetery, which is now known as African Cemetery No. 2.
On September 8, 2010, the Newtown Pike Extension in Lexington, Kentucky was named Oliver Lewis Way, in honor of Lewis’s historic accomplishments.
For more about African American jockeys, read “The Kentucky Derby’s Forgotten Jockeys.”