Threads of Triumph

By Laurel Swanz

Eugene Poole Jr. eagerly unloads 12 eight-foot-long, plastic-sealed cardboard tubes from his white Nissan SUV.

Once placed on a wooden table inside, he peels back the plastic wrap of one of the packages, splits the seam of the cardboard underneath it and reveals a tightly wound roll of fabric. He gingerly places it atop a white cloth sheet, unfurling vibrant colors and complex stitching within.

His quilt, which depicts a young man in green derby silks straddling a racing saddle against an orange paisley backdrop, is part of Poole’s "Reflections N Black: Kentucky Derby Jockeys (1800s-1900s)" collection.

Altogether there are 31 quilts highlighting 16 historic Black Derby-winning jockeys. The works mark the first time the jockeys have been artistically rendered “in a life-size quilted format, in this medium, anywhere in America,” Poole said, proudly.

He removes any misplaced threads from the quilt and smoothes it, smiling at the jockey it portrays as if he were an old friend. This one is Oliver Lewis, the first jockey to win the Kentucky Derby, sporting silks precisely color matched to the uniform he wore when he made history in 1875 on Aristides. Lewis was 19 at the time.

Despite being born long after Oliver Lewis’s death, Poole ‘85 DES said he knows the jockey well from his many hours of research, cutting, measuring and stitching fabric and the many “conversations” the pair shared.

“When I worked on each one of these jockeys, late at night, early in the morning, there's this really intense conversation,” Poole said. “Some of it's audible, some of it's in my mind, but I'm asking each one, what do you want to be? What type of facial expression do you want to have? What do you want me to tell people about you?”

These imagined conversations, inspired by countless hours of research, are reflective of the care Poole takes with each story he tells through quilting. He seeks to capture more than just his subject’s likeness; he wants to embody their spirit.

Oliver Lewis’s great-granddaughter, Sheila Lewis, believes Poole accomplished his goal. She was among the first to see a portion of his Black jockeys exhibition at a private showing at the Kentucky Derby Museum in April 2024.

“I felt like I was standing right next to the man,” Lewis said after seeing the quilt of her great-grandfather. “It was freeing, to say the least. It felt so good. It was tearful. Happy, joyful tears. It was very emotional.”

Sheila Lewis has spent much of her life studying her family’s history. She said she believes her great-grandfather was underappreciated in his time. Knowing people care about sharing and learning his story, and getting to experience this recognition for him and her ancestors, means the world to her, she said.

“I just felt like this was a godsend moment for me, for my grandmother, for my mother, and my grandmother’s mother,” Sheila Lewis said. “They’re since deceased, so they won’t get to enjoy this with me, but I can almost feel them jubilating.”

Since discovering Poole’s quilting project, Sheila Lewis and Poole have become close friends. (They were introduced through Lexington city leader and historian Yvonne Giles.) Sheila Lewis said Poole, and the positive reception his quilting collection has received, inspired her to keep telling her great-grandfather’s story. She is planning to write a book about Oliver Lewis, his family and his legacy.

Poole started what he calls his “passion project” with no intention of displaying it on a large scale. Quilting was a hobby he discovered during the COVID-19 pandemic.

His experience as a working architect and in other forms of artistry, like oil painting, served as a foundation to quickly pick up the craft. That, and his grandfather Charles Edward Lynch was a professional tailor in the 1930s and 1940s.

“My family believes that gene from him jumped from the 1930s and landed on me,” Poole said.

In his living room in Maryland during quarantine, he taught himself how to use a non-computerized quilting arm. The result: 180 quilts designed to bring Black historical figures into contemporary awareness.

“Every single stitch and every inch comes from the creativity in my head to my hand. There’s no computer in this,” Poole said.

He began stitching quilts of Black jockeys in 2021, holding special significance given his Kentucky upbringing. He was born in Hopkinsville and sought to honor the accomplishments of the jockeys and illuminate a part of Kentucky’s history he did not know much about growing up.

In April 2025, he got to share this project with his state when "Reflections N Black" opened at the Kentucky Center for African American Heritage in Louisville. Poole said around 200 people attended the opening ceremony, including “busloads of schoolchildren.” In the three months the exhibit was open, an estimated 1,500 people viewed it, according to KCAAH executive director Aukram Burton.

“I’m just over the moon about it. I didn't know all this was going to happen, and for it to get the type of attention that it got there in Louisville…” Poole said. “It’s paying homage to the people that it depicts, that's the main thing. If I don't make a dime out of this, I'm good, I've already had a school of kids to come in, right? Hey, man, I've been paid.”

“Quilter” is certainly not Poole’s only title. He’s a decorated Air Force veteran, ordained preacher and motivational speaker, author, former professor and scholar. He is the chief staff architect for the management of U.S. Capitol design and construction. He led the restoration of the U.S. Capitol dome. He earned two bachelor’s degrees, four master’s degrees and a doctorate degree. His oil paintings are displayed in various locations across the world. He was inducted into UK’s 2020 Hall of Distinguished Alumni.

He said it’s all in the interest of doing things that have “never been done before,” impacting humanity and most importantly, making his father proud.

His father, who was a social worker, “understood people and the things they deal with” and taught Poole from an early age to help people. He recalled waking up early on Saturday mornings at the age of 6 to bring groceries to hungry community members.

He knew people were in need. So, he’d buy groceries, drive up to someone's house, and say, ‘Junior, take that bag, put it on the door, knock on the door, come back to the car.’ I did that,” Poole said.

“I didn't know at the time those selfless acts of charity were going to follow me, but it did, and I have spent my life just trying to be half the man my dad was.”

That lesson shaped not only how Poole treats others but also his approach to Reflections N Black. Poole said he wants his quilts to bring the Black jockeys back to life, serving as an effective medium to convey their stories by allowing viewers to meet them eye to eye.

“Lots of artists have done paintings, but quilts make it more three dimensional. It's one piece of flat fabric that has been manipulated to fool the eye. I make it life-sized because I want to bring them to 2025,” Poole said. “So, you’re standing eye to eye with the artwork, and the artwork is looking square back at you, and it doesn’t blink. It’s not intimidated by you standing there. I think that’s so powerful. It continues to tell a story, that ‘this is how I lived; this is what I did.’”

This storytelling power will be on display in Lexington — where Poole nurtured his passion for art 40 years ago — beginning in the fall of 2026. His quilts are slated to be featured at the Headley-Whitney Museum in an exhibit titled The Art of Quilts and the Stories They Tell, said Executive Director and Curator Christina Bell. The exhibit will coincide with Keeneland hosting the 2026 Breeders’ Cup.

“His genuineness as a person comes through to me in the quilts, even before I knew him,” Bell said. “The stories that he is telling, I think it's something that hasn't been talked about that much and needs to be.”

Poole is nowhere near done talking about Black jockeys. He

said the current collection is only a first iteration and he’s already working on another one, this time with the jockeys riding horses, which Bell hinted at wanting to include in the Headley-Whitney exhibit if they’re ready.

“I can't wait to release this work, though it's still underway.” Poole said. “You can just feel the motion in the piece. The whole dynamic is different. It’s exciting to me because it's a continuation of this, but it's also a departure, because it's a different presentation. If you think about them being right there at the finish line, it captures that essence.”

His drive to push his work forward is part of a larger philosophy. With every stitch, speech, build and brush stroke, Poole strives to secure his legacy.

“I make room for myself, we all do. But the blessing is when you unselfishly act, it comes back around,” Poole said. “This whole thing is a cycle, and sometimes it takes people a lifetime to learn it. I think I learned it fairly early. So, I have to create value in myself, so I'm able to give value and impart values to others. There's nothing ostentatious or grand or flamboyant about it, I'm just who I am.”

He hopes for the same self-realization for UK students who come after him, suggesting that the thread that weaves one’s life into something unforgettable is persistence.

“Stick to it and be true to self. When you’re true to self, you’re true to humanity. It doesn’t matter the flavor of the humanity,” Poole said. “It's going to pay off. I'm not talking about monetarily. I'm talking about legacy, because we should be creating things that create legacy for other people, to learn from, to draw from, to improve, to enhance, to move forward and also to have hope for, that is the main thing.” ■

Who are some of the other jockeys?

Other Black jockeys in the Reflections N Black collection:

• U.S. Racing Hall of Fame inductee Willie Simms won the Kentucky Derby in 1898 on Plaudit and won five of the races that would become the U.S. triple crown series. He created the short-stirrup riding style, which jockeys still imitate.

• Alonzo Clayton was the youngest jockey to ever win the Kentucky Derby at age 15. He won in 1892 on Azra.

• Isaac B. Murphy, considered by many to be one of the greatest riders in American horse racing history, was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame at its creation in 1955. He won the Kentucky Derby in 1891 on Kingman.

• Erskine Henderson is the only jockey to win three derbies in one year: the Kentucky, the Tennessee and the Coney Island derbies. He won the Kentucky Derby in 1885 on Joe Cotton.