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Marguerite Henry is a well-known author of horse stories. In Black Gold, she tells the story of a racehorse named Black Gold who won the Kentucky Derby in 1924. She focuses on two people that influenced his career: trainer Hanley Webb and jockey Jaydee Mooney. The book emphasizes values such as courage and perseverance, which are important to all children’s lives. The illustrations by Wesley Dennis bring this story to life for readers.

Black Gold is a historical novel about the first years of oil drilling in Oklahoma. The book follows two characters, John David “Jaydee” Mooney and Al Hoots. Jaydee lives with his mother in New Orleans until he’s nine, when she dies from yellow fever. He then heads out west to live with his aunt on her ranch in Oklahoma Territory. At that time, it was called Indian Territory because there were many Native American tribes living there at the time (including the Osage tribe). Hoots also lives on a ranch in this area and buys an unruly filly named U-see-it for $60 after seeing her run one day against much larger horses; she comes from Kentucky but has been sold to Mexican owners who don’t know how to take care of her properly. She becomes Hoots’ favorite horse and eventually wins 34 races before being sold off by someone who doesn’t understand that claiming races are supposed to be just practice runs for horses—not real competitions where they’re bought by other people if they lose (which happens here). After winning another race back home, U-see-it gets caught up in a dispute between two men over which one will buy her; as punishment for getting involved, officials bar both men from racing or breeding U-see-it again and strike all records of her existence from their registry books so that no one can prove she ever existed.

Mooney grows up into adulthood during these events but does not follow them closely until later on when he begins working as an oil driller himself under Webb’s tutelage..

Meanwhile, Jaydee Mooney works hard in New Orleans to help support his family. His father is a cemetery sexton and he loves caring for the team of horses that pulls the funeral hearse. He teaches himself how to ride bareback and moves with the horses as they run around the racetrack at Fair Grounds Park. Eventually, he becomes a freelance jockey who wants to be professional one day.

Thanks to the oil boom in Oklahoma, Hoots and Rosa earn enough money to send U-see-it to Kentucky. Unfortunately, Hoots dies before this happens, but Rosa carries out his wishes. She breeds U-see-it with Black Toney because they’re both fast and should produce a winning foal. On February 17th of 1921, U-see-it gives birth to a small colt that is all black with a white heart shape on his forehead. The Registry restores her name so she can race anywhere now as well as be trained by Old Man Webb who lives next door to her stall in Lexington, Kentucky with help from Chief Johnson.

Jaydee and Black Gold meet in New Orleans. Jaydee is training another horse, but he can’t get rid of the idea that he wants to be Black Gold’s jockey. He follows Old Man Webb and the colt back to Lexington, watching as Black Gold gets knocked over during a race but recovers quickly enough to win. Jaydee goes up to Old Man Webb and tells him that he knows how to make Black Gold win consistently; he asks if he can ride him instead of his current rider. After some convincing by Jaydee, Old Man Webb agrees. Over time, Jaydee learns how best to ride with the colt; they start winning races together. Four days before the Kentucky Derby, Jaydee notices that Black Gold is favoring one foot when running around his pen at home (a big red flag). Despite this injury and despite being bumped into other horses while racing or having no room for himself on certain turns because there are too many horses ahead of him (also red flags), they still manage to pull off an upset victory in the Kentucky Derby. The governor calls them “a little stallion who raced big.”