Race Horse Men "recaptures the vivid sights, sensations, and
illusions of nineteenth-century thoroughbred racing, America's
first mass spectator sport. Inviting readers into the pageantry of
the racetrack, Katherine C. Mooney conveys the sport's inherent
drama while also revealing the significant intersections between
horse racing and another quintessential institution of the
antebellum South: slavery.
A popular pastime across American society, horse racing was most
closely identified with an elite class of southern owners who bred
horses and bet large sums of money on these spirited animals. The
central characters in this story are not privileged whites,
however, but the black jockeys, grooms, and horse trainers who
sometimes called themselves race horse men and who made the
racetrack run. Mooney describes a world of patriarchal privilege
and social prestige where blacks as well as whites could achieve
status and recognition and where favored slaves endured an unusual
form of bondage. For wealthy white men, the racetrack illustrated
their cherished visions of a harmonious, modern society based on
human slavery.
After emancipation, a number of black horsemen went on to
become sports celebrities, their success a potential threat to
white supremacy and a source of pride for African Americans. The
rise of Jim Crow in the early twentieth century drove many horsemen
from their jobs, with devastating consequences for them and their
families. Mooney illuminates the role these too-often-forgotten men
played in Americans' continuing struggle to define the meaning of
freedom.
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