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Race Horse Men recaptures the vivid sights, sensations, and illusions of nineteenth-century thoroughbred racing, Americas first mass spectator sport. Inviting readers into the pageantry of the racetrack, Katherine C. Mooney conveys the sports inherent drama while also revealing the significant intersections between horse racing and another quintessential institution of the antebellum South slavery. A popular pastime across American society, horse racing was most closely identified with an elite class of southern owners who bred horses and bet large sums of money on these spirited animals. The central characters in this story are not privileged whites, however, but the black jockeys, grooms, and horse trainers who sometimes called themselves race horse men and who made the racetrack run.