Art
Too Black Too Fast
Belle Meade Plantation Through Feb. 29Though black athletes dominate many of America’s playing fields these days, you won’t find many hurtling down the stretch at Saratoga, Santa Anita or any other big-league Thoroughbred racetrack. That might lead the history-challenged to assume that the Sport of Kings was traditionally a whiter shade of pale until the relatively recent invasion of riders from the Caribbean and other points south. But they would be incorrect.
Until the early 20th century, when Jim Crow laws pulled blacks off their horses and pushed them into menial jobs on the backstretch, African American jockeys dominated Thoroughbred racing. Oliver Lewis, the winning rider for the first Kentucky Derby in 1875, was African American, as were all but one of his 14 competitors. This pattern of preeminence continued through the next 27 runnings, with black jockeys triumphing in 14. But the last African American rider to win the Derby was Jimmy Winkfield, who nabbed the roses in both the 1901 and 1902 renewals. From 1922 until 2000, no black even had a mount in the race.
Forgotten facts like these are the inspiration behind “Too Black Too Fast,” an exhibit at Belle Meade Plantation featuring paintings by Nashville’s Michael McBride and sculpture by Atlanta’s George Nock.
McBride says he began looking into the role of black jockeys in horse racing in 1991. His friend Yusef Harris, a local historian and bibliophile, had been approached by Churchill Downs for information on the subject. Harris passed the query on because he knew McBride was a history buff as well as a horse lover. “I told Yusef I knew nothing about it and then I went to the library.” He says he was “blown away” to learn that slave jockeys were America’s first professional athletes.
These slave jockeys were young—age 13 to 15 was the norm—and therefore small enough to make the weight limits imposed for races. Being a jockey was a prized occupation, McBride says, because skillful riders “didn’t live the slave life. They weren’t poor, they ate and dressed well.” The riders often traveled from state to state alone, and received a portion of the purses they won. Some used their winnings to buy their freedom. After emancipation, black riders continued to rule the sport until 20th century segregation laws kicked in. At that point, star black jockeys had to take their tack to international arenas—Winkfield, for example, rode for the landed gentry in Europe and Czar Nicholas II in Russia.
McBride decided to make art from the history he’d discovered. “My first idea was to do some work for a local exhibition. But I decided that the story was bigger, there was more to it.” On a visit to George Nock’s studio, McBride learned that the sculptor had also been considering the subject of the African American jockey. The two teamed up and McBride evolved a plan for a touring multimedia show “targeting 60 cities all over the world.” Components still under development include a documentary directed by donnie l. betts and a feature length film—both with soundtracks by Grammy winner Shannon Sanders—as well as a stand-alone music album. (Check out www.tooblacktoofast.com for a sound sample.)
McBride’s series of paintings are in the realist mode and include portraits of noted jockeys as well as the famed Bob Green, the former slave who was the horse trainer at Belle Meade. But the majority of the works are racetrack scenes: saddling up, wagers in the paddock, charging to the finish and waiting for the trophy in the winner’s circle. Some paintings are more specifically historic. “Hiding Out” presents a slave secreting valuable horseflesh in moonlit woods to escape their conscription by Civil War soldiers. And “Ghost” compresses the story of the disappearance of the black jockey from the racing scene into a single charge down the backstretch.
In these paintings, McBride departs from his usual loaded brush and bright pigments. “I wanted an historic look,” he explains, so he employs sepia oils applied so thinly that the weave of the canvas is visible. Resurrecting the technique of a former teacher, Peggy Harris, the artist begins by drawing the figures on paper. Next he models the background on the canvas with cotton balls, and then presses the figural outlines of the paper cartoon to the still wet surface. Where the lines are pressed, the paint lifts off onto the paper. He then models the rest of the painting, using more cotton balls, Q-tips, paper towels and his bare hand. “There’s very little brushwork,” McBride explains. The resulting paintings have the look of antique photographs marked with the fingerprints of the many hands they’ve passed through over time.
The works by George Nock document the sculpting process, featuring clay models as well as finished bronzes. Nock is a former running back for the New York Jets and the Washington Redskins, so he knows first hand what it’s like to pound out the yardage. Some of his pieces in the exhibit are straightforward realism, with every straining muscle shaped, while others are more modernist and abstract. One magnificent 42-inch clay model shows a horse in fully extended stride, with jockey hunched over the withers, squinting toward the finish line.
Nock says he wanted to celebrate the African American jockey “because it was a story that stuck with me.” It’s a story of a time, as described by Edward Hotaling in Great Black Jockeys, when at least “for a few minutes, the only race that mattered was on the track.”
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