The Last Black King of the Kentucky Derby is a book about a little-known sports hero named Jimmy “Wink” Winkfield.  Jimmy was born in 1882 in Chilesburg, Kentucky, one of seventeen children in a family of  sharecroppers.  Jimmy would finish his chores and go to the local racetrack to learn about the horses and to study the jockeys.  When Jimmy turned sixteen he was noticed by a horse trainer and hired as a rider to exercise the horses and that would begin his life as a jockey.  Jimmy would eventually go on to win the Kentucky Derby in 1901 and again in 1902.  By 1904, African-Americans were no longer welcomed as jockeys in the United States.  Jimmy would eventually find work in Poland and Russia.  In Russia he won the Emperor's Purse and went on to race all over Europe.  Jimmy made several attempts to return to the United States to race, but African American jockeys were still not welcome on American tracks.  Jimmy's 1902 victory would be the last Kentucky Derby win ever by an African American jockey.  He also came the closest of any jockey in history to winning three Kentucky Derbys in a row. Jimmy died in 1974 at the age of ninety-one.  Today, Jimmy Winkfield is recognized as one of history’s greatest jockeys with more than 2,600 victories to his name.  In 2004 he was inducted into the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, New York. In 2005, Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, New York, held the first running of the Jimmy Winkfield Stakes.