The First Kentucky Derby

<P>In <I>The First Kentucky Derby</I> racing historian Mark Shrager examines the events leading up to the first “Run for the Roses” the unsuccessful plot hatched by the winning horse’s owner to fix the race and the prominent role played by African Americans in Gilded Age racing culture—a holdover from pre-emancipation days when slaves were trained from birth to ride for their wealthy owners and grew up surrounded by the horses that would be their life’s work. </P>