A Florida horse-riding coach is making waves on TikTok by posting a series of three videos in which she discusses persistent racism in the horse world and highlights the overlooked role of black horsemen in the history of riding in America.
The woman, who works at WildHeart Riding School, opened the series bluntly: “Racism is very prominent in the horseback riding community.”
She said the observation was not based on a single incident, but on a pattern that has become impossible for the school to ignore.
“We’ve been around for a good enough time to see the different people of different backgrounds that come through our barn doors,” she said. “This is something that we’ve seen all too frequently lately.”
For the school, she said, staying silent was not an option.
“When you see something commonly enough, and it’s a problem, we believe it is our responsibility to talk about it, because issues only grow when you talk about them,” she said. “Monsters only get bigger in the dark.”
Anticipating pushback from viewers who have never witnessed discrimination at their own barns, she added a caveat.
“Something that I want you to keep in mind for this video is just because an issue doesn’t happen around you doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, hence why we’re making this video,” she said. “If it happened around us earlier on, we would have made it earlier, but it’s been way too recent and way too common, not in one-off scenarios.”
The question no rider should have to ask
The instructor said staff has increasingly fielded questions from prospective riders of color asking whether they would be welcome, questions she attributed in part to the school’s growing online audience.
“We’ve been getting more and more comments recently, mainly because we’ve probably grown more,” she said. “Am I going to be accepted at this barn? Do you allow people of all colors and races at your barn? Is it okay for my family to be here?”
Other riders, she said, do not comment publicly at all. Instead, they show up in person and share their experiences directly with staff.
“They’ll come here, and they will tell us a story about how they went to a barn recently, and there were other riders there, and they were white, and they were getting treated with way more kindness and respect than this person was,” she said. “That’s why they chose not to ride at that barn.”
The stories are not isolated to one community, according to the instructor. The school operates two locations, and she said the pattern has surfaced at both.
“We’ve heard this at both of our riding school locations, which are in completely two different areas,” she said.
Often, she added, families only open up after they have spent time at the barn and felt the difference for themselves.
“We have heard it oftentimes not before a person comes in but after, and they’ll tell us, ‘Hey, I’m telling you this because I’ve never felt more welcome in a horse riding barn before,'” she said. “And perhaps this goes to say something about learning more about why this is happening in the horseback riding community.”
Her response to those families, she said, never changes.
“Obviously, the number one thing that we always tell these people is horseback riding is for everybody. Everybody is welcome here,” she said. “Your family shouldn’t have to leave a barn because of the color of your skin. Everybody deserves to understand and see the beauty of horseback riding.”
She closed the first video with a call to action aimed at riders and barn workers across the industry.
“If you see this happen at your barn, if you’re currently riding at a barn or you’re working at a barn, call it out. Be the change that you want to see in the world, because this is not something that should be this often and this recurring,” she said. “I know we can’t root it out of the world forever, but perhaps we can bring some positive change.”
@wildhearthorsebackriding We hope this reaches the right people ❤️
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From ancient empires to the first American cowboys
The response to the first video prompted a follow-up. In part two, the instructor shifted from the present to the past, arguing that the sport’s origins tell a very different story than its modern demographics suggest.
“So we made a video about how prominent racism is in the horseback riding industry. I know, it’s terrible,” she said. “So we thought, what a better time to talk about the history of people of color in the horseback riding industry and how it flowed into the horse riding disciplines that we have today?”
She began the lesson in antiquity, framing the horse as one of the ancient world’s most valuable assets.
“In order for you to have the necessary context, we need to hop back to 2000 B.C., to about 1580,” she said. “This is a time during which ancient civilizations like the Greeks, Persians, Mongols, Romans, they’re all using horses for trade, transportation, breeding, some even food.”
Ownership of horses, she explained, was a proxy for power itself.
“They’re almost currency in the food chain, because a lot of the times, whoever had horses signified a certain amount of power,” she said. “Whatever civilization had more horses, they had more military strength, and it meant a lot if somebody owned horses.”
From there, she traced the animals’ arrival in the Western Hemisphere with European colonization.
“Now, let’s go into the early 1500s. In 1493, you got Columbus, who brings horses on his second voyage from Spain to the Caribbean. In 1519, Hernán Cortés brings horses to mainland Mexico,” she said. “This is important because Spanish culture actually really ropes, no pun intended, into the Western horse riding disciplines that we have today.”
As Spanish colonies pushed north into what is now the American Southwest, a new class of horsemen emerged, one that would shape American riding for centuries.
“You’ve got a bunch of Spanish colonies spreading into the American Southwest, what we know as Florida, Texas, New Mexico, and you’ve got Spanish ranchers training Indigenous peoples and people of Spanish and Indigenous ancestry,” she said. “And these horsemen end up getting known as the vaqueros.”
The vaquero legacy, she argued, is stitched into nearly every element of the modern Western discipline.
“This is really important because this literally becomes the foundation for what we know Western riding to be today,” she said. “Even things like the word ‘buckaroo,’ chaps, spurs, a stock saddle, all of that came from the vaquero traditions.”
She ended the second video with a teaser for the final installment.
“Just like in other regions of the world, because of transportation, trade, warfare, horses ended up spreading all over the North American region,” she said. “And this becomes very important because this is how we get into Black history coming into the horse riding world. And for that, we’re gonna have to make a part three.”
The historical record backs up her broader point about diversity in the saddle. According to Smithsonian Magazine, historians estimate that one in four cowboys in the late 19th-century American West was Black. Many were formerly enslaved men who headed west after the Civil War, according to scholarship summarized on Wikipedia, which notes Black cowboys made up an estimated 25% of those on the great cattle drives of the 1860s to 1880s. Some, such as Bose Ikard, rode the famed Goodnight-Loving Trail.
@wildhearthorsebackriding Part 2 on this very important topic!
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The golden age of Black jockeys at the Kentucky Derby
The final video picked up the thread in the American South, where the instructor said enslaved Africans became the backbone of the young nation’s horse industry.
“So now we’re in the 1700s to 1800s, and this is where Black horsemen really come into play,” she said. “You’ve got plantations, private race tracks, breeding farms, and enslaved Africans are really trusted with taking care of and training these horses.”
That expertise, she said, compounded across generations and translated directly into dominance on the track.
“Over time, they become generationally really, really good at being horsemen,” she said. “And as race tracks get more popular, they also dominate the horse racing field.”
Nowhere was that dominance more visible than at America’s most famous race.
In 1875, the first Kentucky Derby was ever held. Many people know about the Kentucky Derby. It’s a really big televised event,” she said. “And what most people don’t know is that at the first ever Kentucky Derby, 13 of the 15 jockeys were all Black. And the first ever person to win the Kentucky Derby was also Black. His name was Oliver Lewis.”
Her figures check out. According to the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights, Lewis, a 19-year-old Black Kentuckian, won the inaugural Derby on May 17, 1875, riding Aristides, a colt trained by Ansel Williamson, a Black former slave. Black riders went on to win 15 of the first 28 Kentucky Derbies, according to the commission.
The instructor said that era of dominance lasted nearly three decades.
“For about 27 years, until 1902, Black jockeys really dominated the horse racing industry,” she said. “15 of the 28 Kentucky Derbies were all won by Black jockeys. You’ve got riders like Isaac Murphy and Jimmy Winkfield, who actually, at the time, became some of the highest paid athletes in America.”
That claim, too, is well documented. According to History.com, African American jockeys were among the highest-paid athletes of their day. Murphy, the first jockey to win three Derbies, earned $10,000 to $20,000 a year at his peak, making him the highest-paid jockey in the United States, according to the Chicago Crusader.
An 80-year absence from the winner’s circle
Then, she said, the door slammed shut.
“In 1901, 1902, Jimmy Winkfield wins both Kentucky Derbies in these two consecutive years, and very, very unfortunately becomes the last Black person to ever win the Kentucky Derby,” she said. “Mind you, we’re in 2026.”
The absence that followed stretched across most of the 20th century.
“After 1922, most Black jockeys disappear from the Kentucky Derby altogether. And it’s not until the year 2000 that you see the first Black jockey compete in the Kentucky Derby again,” she said. “So for about 80 years, you do not see a Black person in the Kentucky Derby.”
The record largely bears this out. Winkfield remains the last Black jockey to win the race, according to Smithsonian Magazine. According to Black America Web, Marlon St. Julien became the first Black jockey to ride in the Derby in 79 years when he competed in 2000.
The instructor was direct about the cause of the disappearance.
“It’s because in the 1900s, you’ve got Jim Crow laws, you’ve got segregation, and Black people get systematically pushed out of horse riding as a sport through discrimination, through exclusion,” she said. “And it really only goes to show that even though segregation was ended before 2000, you don’t even see the first Black competitor until the year 2000.”
Historians agree. Chris Goodlett, senior curator of collections at the Kentucky Derby Museum, told ABC News that racism was the main reason for the decline of Black jockeys, noting that Winkfield was once pushed against the rail during a race near Chicago as an intimidation tactic.
Horses don’t care what race you are
The instructor closed the series by connecting the history lesson back to today’s barns.
“So if this goes to show anybody anything, it’s that just because a sport is currently dominated by white people, it doesn’t mean that that’s where it came from,” she said. “And it’s very important to respect the origins of a sport and to remember that racism has no place in sports, let alone anywhere.”
Her final words returned to the animals at the center of it all.
“Horses don’t care what race you are,” she said, “and you shouldn’t treat people differently, or take them out of a sport, or prevent their family from participating in a sport, or prevent kids from participating in a sport because of the color of their skin.”
@wildhearthorsebackriding Pt.3!
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