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Tavis: Joe Drape is an award-winning sportswriter who covers thoroughbred horse racing for the "New York Times.' His new book tells the story of an African American jockey named Jimmy Winkfield. The last Black jockey to win the Kentucky Derby more than a century ago. The book is called 'Black Maestro: The Epic Life of an American Legend.' Joe Drape, nice to have you on the program.

Joe Drape: Tavis, thanks for having me.

Tavis: It seems the obvious place to start a conversation about horse racing these days is with Barbaro. I haven't sent the story in the last couple of days. How's he doing?

Drape: He's recovering as well as can be expected. I think, what I've been trying to remind my readers about is he's gonna be in a stall, in a cast, for six, seven, eight, nine months, until they pull that cast off and see if that bone fused, and he could walk as a pain-free horse. He's not out of the woods, and the surgeons tell you that too. But everything's going well. No infections, they've changed the cast a couple times. As well as could be expected is the short answer.

Tavis: I've been in a cast twice in my life. Neither for six or eight months at a time. How does a horse survive, and what's the nature of a horse with regard to something like that for that long a period of time?

Drape: Well first of all, they're confined to a stall. Second, you can't put them in traction. You can't suspend them. A horse needs to be on all four legs. He can't be recumbent for long periods of time. Which is a word I learned from the veterinarian.

Tavis: That means he can't lay down?

Drape: Yeah, he can't lay down.

Tavis: All right. That's a good 'Scrabble' word, by the way.

Drape: Yeah, no, and I owe the vets on that one. And when that happens, their organs will collapse. That's why they can't be suspended. These are very finely made creatures by God. There was a plan to them all along. And so he's just gonna stand there for a while. They say he's a good patient. Both the rider, Edgar Prado, his trainer, Michael Matz, it's dangerous to give horses human qualities. But they did say he was always a smart horse that kept himself out of trouble, and the surgeon says the same thing. That he acts like he knows he wants to get better.

Tavis: To that very point, though, I'm glad you raised that, Joe. What is it about this horse - I'm not, I'm saying this to the wrong guy. I'm not particularly a horse lover. I confessed to you a moment ago, I went to my first Kentucky Derby - which we'll talk about that in a second - I went to my first Kentucky Derby this year. But even I have had a little soft spot in my heart for this horse and this story of Barbaro. What is it about this horse that's got, like, everybody's attention and pulling that heartstring? It's a horse.

Drape: It's remarkable. The stories I wrote in the wake of Barbaro's breakdown went to the top 25 of our emailed list at the "New York Times." We've got wars; we've got stock markets crashing. We got all kinds of things going on. My theory is, horse racing's three centuries old. It is, in a lot of ways, the best of us. You can't go out and buy a champion horse like you can a baseball player. It started with two guys and a horse saying, mine's faster than yours, all right?

So you have this beautiful, graceful animal. You have the best in people saying, hey, let's watch this beautiful, graceful animal race. And you saw Barbaro. Now, did that not take your breath away?

Tavis: I was blown away by it. I absolutely was, I admit. It was a great race.

Drape: Yeah, and I do think people remember that. It's a simpler time, it's a simpler way. It takes us back to, I guess, innocence.

Tavis: Yeah. How, and this is obviously the $64,000 question, how good was he?

Drape: He was good. I've seen a bunch of them not make it six out of the last 10. This one and Smarty Jones were the real deal. They were undefeated. They were very good two year olds. His Derby winning was spectacular. And you go back to the last three Triple Crown champions, Affirmed, Seattle Slew, Secretariat, they all fit that profile. You knew the first time they hit the track they were very fast horses, and this was the same with Barbaro. There's no surprises there.

Tavis: So you think he could have done it?

Drape: Yes, he could have done it. And someday, we're gonna get it. It's just.

Tavis: But to that point, what's causing this gap, though, to go for so long?

Drape: Part of it is the breeding of the horse. They're breeding for the market right now, for the sales. Five hundred million dollars are spent on yearlings; those are one year old horses, in sales rings a year. The premium is on fast, precocious, two year old champions. The classics are long distances. They call them the classics, the Derby, the Preakness, the Belmont.

You're going a mile a quarter, a mile and three-sixteenth, a mile and a half. So those horses aren't as sound, aren't as bred to go the long distance. So I think that's part of it. And also, it's an astonishing feat. It's like the Triple Crown in baseball. There's only 11 of them for a reason. It's hard to do. It's three different tracks, three different distances, over five weeks. It should be hard to get, but again, someday we'll get it. This is the longest period, though, between Triple Crown champions.

Tavis: Triple Crown, yeah. Before I jump to Jimmy Winkfield, you and I were starting a conversation just before we came on camera here when I mentioned to you that I'd gone to the Derby for the first time this year. And you mentioned that the Derby is one of five...

Drape: Five transcendent events.

Tavis: Five transcendent sports events.

Drape: That I urge everybody to go to, even if they are not sports people.

Tavis: All right, so one is the Derby.

Drape: The Derby's one.

Tavis: All right.

Drape: Indy 500, two.

Tavis: Okay.

Drape: The Masters, and I'm not a golf guy, but just wander Augusta National with the people who are golf people, is an incredible thing. And Olympics. Again, that's back to our amateur ideal, although it's not amateur anymore. But this coming together of natures. And then the British Open of golf, and it's the same thing as the Derby. This is hallowed ground. These are people who worship old Tom Moore, whatever the guy was, who invented it over there. (Laughs) So those are the five I'd tell anybody to go to.

Tavis: So the Superbowl, not on your list?

Drape: Yes, as the late, great, Duane Thomas, and I don't know if he's late. I shouldn't say that. He said, 'If it's the biggest game in the world, why do they play it every year?'

Tavis: Yeah. (Laughs)

Drape: (Laughs) So.

Tavis: All right, so point well taken. So I mentioned I went to the Derby now this year, first time. I said that three times now. I had a great time down there. I was fascinated, I was doing a little reading myself in advance of going to the Derby, 'cause I'm thinking, I'm showing my ignorance on television here, I'd never been before, and I'm thinking, how many Negroes are gonna be at this Derby?

I'm like, how many Black people am I gonna run into down there? I was blown away to see Black people all over the place at this Derby. And then when I started reading about Jimmy Winkfield, and other jockeys back in the day, I come to find out, lo and behold, before the White guys got a hold of this, brothers used to run the Derby.

Drape: It was their birthright. Fifteen of the first 28 Derbies were won by African American jockeys. It was an extension of slavery. Central Kentucky was where the thoroughbreds were. The slaves were entrusted with the care of the horses. They learned the craft, they cherished it. I have oral histories in there. During the Civil War, they'd bring the horses, would hide in, like, caves and shacks with the slaves.

Because both the Confederates and the Union army were trying to steal them. So they had to, like, calm them, make them very quiet. They were the game. They were the biggest athletes in America at the time. Remember, this is pre-baseball. Baseball's just starting. Boxing's happening. Isaac Murphy was the most well-known sports celebrity in the world at the time in the 1870s. So, this was their game, this was their skill, this was their craft.

Tavis: So Jimmy Winkfield wins in 1901 and 1902, as I recall.

Drape: And misses 1903 by this much.

Tavis: So tell me what makes this guy such a great jockey, Jimmy Winkfield.

Drape: Well, what happened, he took seriously, I was listening to you the other night, and you came up with the Nietzsche quote of envision your future. He envisioned his future as a top race rider as a seven year old sitting on the limestone fences of central Kentucky, watching these guys older than him. He bugged them, he pestered them. They finally said, kid, come, we'll teach you everything they knew.

And it was a long apprenticeship. He spent eight, nine years learning how to do this. Learning how to coax speed out a horse, how to treat him right. How to communicate with him. He goes, becomes a remarkable race rider almost immediately, but it'd be like if Michael Jordan after his second championship, or Lebron James now, if they said okay, you're out.

You can't play anymore. If the Europeans came over now and just took over basketball. Jim Crow laws come down on him. The Irish immigrants are coming in from New York. Father Bill Daley's (sp?) one of these old guys who decides, hey, I can basically traffic in small Irish boys. Buy them from their parents, send them to these tracks, and take a cut of their earnings. So all of a sudden, he's without a job. The White owners know he's the best jockey, wanna keep him, but they're riding around these racetracks at 35 miles an hour, and there's fistfights, and the horses are getting hurt.

So he looks at an ad from Jack Keen (sp?) in Russia, saying okay, we need a jockey over there. Guy has a seventh grade education. He's five foot, 105 pounds. He's the seventeenth of 17 kids. He takes a Polish-English dictionary, gets on a boat, goes over there, and has the good fortune of hooking up with two of the most established, richest Armenian oil men in the empire right there. And it was like going Calumet. The horse people know what it is. It's like going to the Yankees at the plate.

Tavis: Yup. (Laughs)

Drape: They were spending the money; they were getting it done over there. And from there, he just goes on to have this extraordinary career. But more interesting for me, and why there is a book, is he was covered colorblind. He was in the gossip pages. He was in the newspapers. He was in the horse journals. He was the Black Maestro, not only for the skill he had in the saddle, but he had this elegance. The Tsar would have him to waltz in dances. He hung out with the top notch of society.

Tavis: I can't do justice to Jimmy Winkfield's story in just a matter of minutes, but in the 30 seconds I have left, what I love is, or love and loathe, it's a powerful story. Nineteen forty-one, as I recall, 'Sports Illustrated...'

Drape: Sixty-one.

Tavis: Sixty-one 'Sports Illustrated' rediscovers Jimmy, wants to honor him at a major event. They bring him back to Kentucky, and in '61, he can't get in the hotel.

Drape: The Brown Hotel, downtown. He's more or less the guest of honor.

Tavis: Yeah.

Drape: He's with his 37 year old daughter, who's a graduate of Fisk, at that point, who's married to a White doctor. This colorblindness seeped down into his family. And comes in, the guy won't let him in. But he stood his ground, and this is what got him through two world wars, saving 262 horses. He stood there with dignity, and they finally let him in.

Tavis: It's a fascinating book. 'Black Maestro: The Epic Life of an American Legend,' by Joe Drape from the "New York Times.' The story of Jimmy Winkfield, the last African American jock to win the Kentucky Derby. Joe, nice to have you here.

Drape: Thanks, Tavis.

Tavis: Thanks for the work. I appreciate it. That's our show for tonight. Catch me on the weekends on PRI, Public Radio International. Check your local listings. See you back here next time on PBS. Until then, good night from L.A. Thanks for watching. And as always, keep the faith.