The pair won by a reported two lengths, setting a new American record time for a mile-and-a-half race.

Lewis rode a horse named Aristide, which was one of two colts entered by their owner, H. Price McGrath of Jessamine, Kentucky.

Oliver Lewis followed his instructions and was pushing most of the field while trailing a horse named Volcano for most of the race.

With that victory Lewis became the first jockey to win the Kentucky Derby, America’s longest continuous sporting event.

Later that season, Lewis came in second in the Belmont Stakes in New York and won three more races at the Louisville Jockey Club, riding Aristide in all of them.

After retiring, Lewis worked for a short time as a day laborer, but then began providing handicapping tables and racing forms to bookies.

Oliver Lewis died from mitral insufficiency and kidney disease, in Cincinnati, Ohio, on January 30, 1924, at the age of 67.