Abe Hawkins | |
---|---|
Occupation | Sugar plantation slave: Jockey |
Died | May 4, 1867 Darrow, Louisiana |
Resting place | Ashland Plantation |
Major racing wins | |
Jerome Stakes (1866) Travers Stakes (1866) | |
Honors | |
Fair Grounds Racing Hall of Fame (1997) [1] National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame (2024) | |
Significant horses | |
Arrow, Asteroid, Lecomte, Louis d'Or, Merrill, Minnehaha, Panic, Rhynodine, Whale |
Abe Hawkins, also known in later years as Uncle Able Hawkins, The Black Prince, The Dark Sage of Louisiana, and The Slayer of Lexington, was a slave on the Ashland sugar plantation located in Darrow, Louisiana, in Ascension Parish. Duncan Farrar Kenner owned the plantation and for ten years Abe was his slave. He rode some 25 horses to victory.
Kenner was a businessman that owned and raced horses with a track located on the plantation grounds. In 1854, Kenner purchased slave jockey Abe Hawkins. [2] Abe was considered small and of "light figure" and suited to being a jockey. Abe rode for Kenner until he became a freeman in 1864, and then for Robert A. Alexander and was nationally known for fifteen years. [3]
By 1865, Abe was rated the second best known athlete behind white jockey Gilbert Watson Patrick, known as Gilpatrick, and won against him in a match race before a crowd of 25,000 in New York City. [4] Abe had a career twenty-five wins, including the two 1866 wins while under the employ of Robert A. Alexander, the Travers Stakes riding Merrill with former slave trainer Ansel Williamson, and the first Jerome Stakes riding Watson with trainer Jacob Pincus. [5]
Abe returned to Ashland in 1866 and lived there until he died on May 4, 1867.
In 2024 Hawkins was selected for induction into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame by its Historic Review Committee. [6]
Desmond Sandford "Sandy" Hawley, is a Canadian Hall of Fame jockey.
Gary Lynn Stevens is an American Thoroughbred horse racing jockey, actor, and sports analyst. He became a professional jockey in 1979 and rode his first of three Kentucky Derby winners in 1988. He had nine wins in Triple Crown races, winning the Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes three times each, as well as ten Breeders' Cup races. He was also a nine-time winner of the Santa Anita Derby. He entered the United States Racing Hall of Fame in 1997. Combining his U.S. and international wins, Stevens had over 5,000 race wins by 2005, and reached his 5,000th North American win on February 15, 2015.
Kent Jason Desormeaux is an American thoroughbred horse racing Hall of Fame jockey who holds the U.S. record for most races won in a single year with 598 wins in 1989. He has won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes three times each, and the Belmont Stakes once. Aboard Real Quiet, he lost the 1998 Triple Crown by a nose.
Ansel Williamson (1806–1881) was an American thoroughbred horse racing trainer and a member of the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame. He trained horses who won the Kentucky Derby, Travers Stakes, Belmont Stakes, Jerome Handicap, Phoenix Stakes and Withers Stakes.
Duncan Farrar Kenner was an American politician who served as a Deputy from Louisiana to the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1862. In 1864, he served as the chief diplomat from the Confederate States of America to Europe.
Oliver Eric Guerin was an American Hall of Fame jockey.
Robby J. Albarado is an American Thoroughbred horse racing jockey. He began riding at the age of 10 and progressed to riding at bush tracks in his native Louisiana by the age of 12. After turning professional, he earned his first official win at Evangeline Downs in 1990. Since then, he has won more than 5,000 races, but his career has endured setbacks as a result of serious injuries. During 1998 and 1999, he suffered two skull fractures, one of which required doctors to replace a damaged portion of his skull with titanium mesh and polymer plate. Another serious accident in the fall of 2000 kept him out of racing for the better part of 2001.
Craig Perret is an American thoroughbred horse racing jockey. He began riding horses at age five and by seven was riding quarter horses in match races. At age fifteen he began his career in thoroughbred racing and in 1967 was the leading apprentice jockey in the United States in terms of money won.
Edward Retz "Eddie" Maple is a retired American thoroughbred horse racing jockey. One of eight siblings, he is an older brother to jockey Sam Maple, who won more than 2,500 races.
John R. Velazquez is a Puerto Rican jockey in Thoroughbred horse racing. He began his career in Puerto Rico and moved to New York in 1990. In 2004 and 2005 he was the United States Champion Jockey by earnings and both years was given the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Jockey. He was inducted into the Horse Racing Hall of Fame in 2012, rode his 5,000th winner in 2013, and became the leading money-earning jockey in the history of the sport in 2014.
Calvin H. Borel is an American jockey in thoroughbred horse racing and rode the victorious mount in the 2007 Kentucky Derby, the 2009 Kentucky Derby and the 2010 Kentucky Derby. His 2009 Derby win with Mine That Bird was the third biggest upset in Derby history,, and Borel's winning margin of 6+3⁄4 lengths was the greatest in Derby history since Assault won by 8 lengths in 1946. On May 1, 2009, Borel won the Kentucky Oaks aboard Rachel Alexandra, only the second time since 1993 that a jockey has won the Oaks-Derby combo, and just the seventh time overall a jockey has accomplished this feat in the same year. On May 16, 2009, Borel won the 2009 Preakness Stakes at Pimlico with thoroughbred filly Rachel Alexandra. In doing so, Borel became the first jockey to win the first two jewels of the Triple Crown on different mounts. Borel's nickname is "Bo'rail'" due to his penchant for riding close to the rail to save ground.
Alfred Masson Robertson was a Hall of Fame jockey in American Thoroughbred horse racing.
Walter Blum was an American jockey who won 4,382 races in a 22-year career. Blum received the George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award for being the best jockey of 1964. He won the 1971 Belmont Stakes as the jockey of 34-1 long shot Pass Catcher, which prevented Canonero II from winning the Triple Crown. He was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 1986, and the following year into the United States Racing Hall of Fame.
Larry Lloyd Snyder was an American Thoroughbred horse racing jockey whose career spanned thirty-five years from 1960 to 1994. In the early 1960s he began competing at Oaklawn Park Race Track in Hot Springs, Arkansas where he would win eight riding titles. Beginning in 1964, he also rode at Arlington Park in Chicago where he won the riding title in 1974 and 1976, then at Louisiana Downs in Bossier City, Louisiana he won six riding titles between 1981 and 1986.
John L. Rotz was an American Thoroughbred horse racing jockey and a World Champion in Western riding competitions.
Anna Rose "Rosie" Napravnik is a former American Thoroughbred horse racing jockey and two-time winner of the Kentucky Oaks. Beginning her career in 2005, she was regularly ranked among the top jockeys in North America in both earnings and total races won. By 2014 she had been in the top 10 by earnings three years in a row and was the highest-ranked woman jockey in North America. In 2011, she won the Louisiana Derby for her first time and was ninth in the 2011 Kentucky Derby with the horse Pants on Fire. In 2012 she broke the total wins and earnings record for a woman jockey previously held by Julie Krone, and became the first woman rider to win the Kentucky Oaks, riding Believe You Can. She won the Oaks for a second time in 2014 on Untapable. She is only the second woman jockey to win a Breeders' Cup race and the first to win more than one, having won the 2012 Breeders' Cup Juvenile on Shanghai Bobby and the 2014 Breeders' Cup Distaff on Untapable. Napravnik's fifth-place finish in the 2013 Kentucky Derby and third in the 2013 Preakness Stakes on Mylute are the best finishes for a woman jockey in those two Triple Crown races to date, and she is the only woman to have ridden in all three Triple Crown races.
George Martin Odom was an American National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame jockey and trainer in Thoroughbred horse racing. He is only one of two people to ever have won the Belmont Stakes as both a jockey and a trainer.
Ashland Plantation, also known as the Belle Helene or Ashland-Belle Helene Plantation, is a historic building, built in 1841, that was a plantation estate and home of Duncan Farrar Kenner. Located in Darrow, Louisiana, in Ascension Parish. The manor house is an example of antebellum Greek Revival architecture.
Joel Rosario is a Champion jockey in American Thoroughbred horse racing, originally from the Dominican Republic. In the space of five weeks in 2013 he rode the winners of the Dubai World Cup and the Kentucky Derby. In 2021 he rode Knicks Go to wins in the Pegasus World Cup, Whitney Stakes, and Breeders' Cup Classic.
James Dee "Jimmy" Nichols was an American Thoroughbred horse racing jockey and horseman who, after retiring from race-riding, played a key role in the two U.S. Triple Crown race wins of Risen Star.