In 1875, a 19-year-old Black jockey named Oliver Lewis made history in the Kentucky Derby then quietly disappeared.Lewis became the first jockey to ever win the Kentucky Derby, America’s longest-running sporting event. At the time, the race was watched by 10,000 spectators and held at the Louisville Jockey Club, now known as Churchill Downs.What makes his victory even more striking is that he wasn’t supposed to win.Lewis rode Aristide, one of two horses entered by the same owner. The favored horse, Chesapeake, was expected to take the prize. Lewis was reportedly instructed to set the pace and tire the field so Chesapeake could surge late.But things didn’t go as planned.As the race unfolded, Chesapeake fell far behind. In the final stretch, Lewis found himself neck and neck with another horse, Volcano. He seized the moment. Aristide pulled away and won by two lengths.With that decision, Oliver Lewis became the first Kentucky Derby champion.At that first Derby, 13 of the 15 jockeys were African American, as was Aristide’s trainer, Ansel Williamson facts rarely mentioned in popular accounts of the sport today.Despite his success, Lewis would never ride in the Kentucky Derby again. He retired after that season for reasons that remain unknown.He later worked as a laborer, then as a bookmaker when it was legal in Kentucky. He raised a family of six children and died in 1924 at the age of 68.The man who won the very first Derby helped build the sport yet history nearly left him behind.