Garret Lewis: Difference between revisions

Black American jockey, Kentucky Derby winner

Garret Davis Lewis (1862/3 – 1880) was a Black American Thoroughbred racing jockey best known riding the horse Fonso to its win in the 1880 Kentucky Derby.^[1]

He was born in Fayette county, Kentucky in 1862.^[2][3] Eight years later the family had moved to Hutchison Station, Kentucky, where his father owned a farm worth $2,000.^[4] By 1880, Lewis, his father and his brother, who would become the Derby-winning Jockey, Isaac Lewis, were all working with horses.^[5] Garret began racing for for Byron McClelland when he was about sixteen years old and formed a professional bond with the well-known horseman. He also jockeyed for J.S. Shawhan, Fonso’s owner.^[6] He and Fonso won the Derby on May 18, 1880 and just a few weeks later he was badly injured in an accident on June 8 during the Grand Gala Week races at the St. Louis Fairgrounds racetrack when his horse stumbled and fell.^[7] He went down with it, as well as two other horses and their jockeys. The horses escaped injury but one jockey had internal injuries, one had a broken arm and Lewis was assessed at the time as only badly bruised. Despite this, he went on to race a few more times in Chicago before the injuries he had received in May became fatal.^[8] He was eighteen when he died.

The winner of the 1880 Derby has been identified in some sources as George Garret Lewis.^[9] The Daily Racing Form also conflated him with two other Derby winners: his brother, Isaac, who rode Montrose to victory in 1887, and an unrelated jockey, Oliver Lewis, the first Derby winner, who rode Aristides.^[10] However, his correct name is carried in newspapers of the time and in the censuses.^[3][8][5]