DUNNELLON, FL (352today.com) – Author Avalyn Hunter was familiar with the historical fiction version of Black Gold, the 1924 Kentucky Derby Winner, that had been written by Marguerite Henry in the 1950s.

The book, originally written in the 1950s and re-released in 1992, was very popular and is considered a must-read for horse lovers. Hunter’s curiosity and her desire to share the real story of Black Gold led her to pen the book Dream Derby.  

“It’s an interesting story, a tragic story, and all of these legendary elements, but somehow I couldn’t resist the idea of digging back into the history behind the legend and see what really happened,” says Hunter. “As you know, what we’re told about things, changes over time. And in this case, it turns out that truth is stranger than fiction.”

Black Gold belonged to Rosa Hoots, a full-blooded Native American of Osage descent. According to legend, her husband, Al Hoots, allegedly told her on his deathbed that if she bred Useeit with Black Toney, it would produce a Kentucky Derby winner. However, over time, people told the stories and added their own details, making the truth more interesting.

“In a sense, Black Gold’s story is really a love story about the love between Rosa Hoots and her husband Al,” says Hunter. “And between Hanley Webb [Black Gold’s trainer] and J.D. Mooney [Black Gold’s jockey] coming together and becoming friends because of their love for this special horse.”

Al Hoots raced Black Gold’s mother, Useeit, across the country and in Canada for years, but he lost the mare in a claiming race in Juarez, Mexico with the tale taking an unexpected turn. Al Hoots felt the circumstances of the claim were unfair and refused to surrender Useeit to the claim.

“According to legend, what he did was take a shotgun, chase the guy who came to put the halter on her to lead her away out of the stable, and then hop on the next train out of Juarez with the mare,” says Hunter. “According to newspaper reports of the time, it was a lot more prosaic. The Juarez stewards were like, ‘if you’re not going to turn over the mare according to the rules of racing, then we have to outlaw you and the mare for being eligible to race.’ And because of reciprocity rules among all tracks that use the Jockey Club rules as their model, that meant [Al] Hoots and Useeit could never race again anywhere in the United States.”

Al Hoots made the decision that if he couldn’t race Useeit anymore he would breed her, get foals, and if he couldn’t race her babies, his wife or his son could. Al Hoots then became ill, having been in declining health for some time.

“He and Rosa went to Eureka Springs in Arkansas, which was kind of a medical tourism place at the time. He was doing okay for a while, apparently well enough that Rosa felt she could go back home to Tulsa because her mother was also very ill and she was about 92 at the time,” says Hunter. “And unfortunately, a few days later she received a telegram telling her that her husband was dead. And to add to her sorrows, her mother died four days after her husband did.”

Before Rosa left Al, he made her promise to keep Useeit and never sell her. According to Hunter’s sources who spoke with Rosa, Al told her to breed Useeit with a good stallion. He said that if she did, she would have a colt that could earn her a lot of money.

“There was definitely the dream there that Al Hoots had, that Useeit was going to produce a very special foal,” says Hunter. “It wasn’t quite point of detail as the legend had it.”

In 1917, at the time of Al Hoots’s death, Black Toney, the sire or father of Black Gold, was not a popular stallion.

“By the time Black Gold ran in the Derby [in 1924], Black Toney was highly fashionable at that time, and so the story was a lot more plausible,” says Hunter.

However, the deathbed story raises some questions. Hunter says she traced it back to a journalist who was writing for a paper in New Orleans, who told a very romantic story about how Black Gold started, and then went onto say that the reason the horse was winning races and achieving great success was because Al Hoots’s spirit was riding and guiding him to victory.

As time went on, people would embellish the story, including those who were knowledgeable about the thoroughbred industry. They claimed Al Hoots was Native American, which he wasn’t, and that he saw a comet in the sky on the night Black Gold was born.

“The minor detail was that Al Hoots had been in his grave for four years before Black Gold was born, and I did some digging around to check, and there were no visible comets to the naked eye in 1921, when the horse was born,” says Hunter.

Learn more from Hunter about Dream Derby during her presentation at the Dunnellon Public Library, located at 20351 Robinson Rd., on Friday, Sept. 20 at 3 p.m. as part of the Cooks & Books & Jazz Beats! series