Kentucky Derby

Kentucky Derby, the most prestigious American horse race, established in 1875 and run annually on the first Saturday in May at Churchill Downs racetrack, Louisville, Kentucky. With the Preakness Stakes (run in mid-May) and the Belmont Stakes (early in June), it makes up American Thoroughbred racing’s coveted Triple Crown. The Derby field is limited to three-year-olds and, since 1975, to 20 horses; fillies carry 121 pounds (55 kg) and colts 126 pounds (57 kg). The race distance was reduced in 1896 from 1.5 miles (about 2,400 metres) to its present 1.25 miles (about 2,000 metres). In the early 21st century it was one of the most popular single-day spectator events in the world, attracting some 150,000 spectators to Churchill Downs annually.

Records

With five Kentucky Derby wins apiece, jockeys Eddie Arcaro and Bill Hartack share the record for most Derbies won over the course of a career. Though the Derby is often called “the most exciting two minutes in sports,” only two horses have officially finished the race in under two minutes. The course record was set in 1973 by Secretariat, who finished in 1:59 2/5. (The runner-up in that race, Sham, finished two and a half lengths behind Secretariat, which some observers believe meant that he also broke two minutes, but only winners’ times were then recorded.) The second horse to surpass the two-minute mark was Monarchos, who won the 2001 Derby in a computer-timed 1:59.97.

The largest margin of victory for a Derby winner is eight lengths, which has been achieved four times, most recently by Assault in 1946. Trainer Ben Jones’s record of six Kentucky Derby wins—most of them for Calumet Farm, which won eight Kentucky Derbies between 1941 and 1968—was tied by Bob Baffert in 2020; although Baffert also won the Derby in 2021, his horse in that race, Medina Spirit, was later disqualified after testing positive for a banned substance. The greatest upset in Derby history occurred in 1913, when Donerail won at odds of 91–1. The first filly to win the Kentucky Derby was Regret in 1915; Genuine Risk (1980) and Winning Colors (1988) are the only other fillies to have won.

History

The Kentucky Derby is one of dozens of “Derbies”—a term that dates to the 18th century and is used, typically, to describe a race for three-year-old horses—contested annually in the United States and around the world. It is Kentucky—along with its associated mythology, imagery, and history—that makes the Kentucky Derby special. Kentucky’s reputation as a place uniquely suited to producing top racehorses because of its natural abundance can be traced as far back as 1784, when John Filson published The Discovery, Settlement, and Present State of Kentucke. Although horses did not figure prominently in his book, Filson described in glowing terms the landscape, climate, and natural resources of what are now the eastern and central parts of the state.

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The history of horse racing in Louisville predates Kentucky’s admission to the United States, in 1792, by about a decade: from at least 1783, problems associated with open racing in the downtown area led city leaders to promote the construction of formal racetracks. Particularly influential in the history of Louisville racing was Meriwether Lewis Clark, Jr., the grandson of legendary explorer William Clark. In 1872 Clark traveled to Europe, where he met the foremost figures in horse racing there and developed the idea of establishing a jockey club in Louisville to sponsor races and highlight the city’s champion racing stock. In 1874 he established a racetrack on land owned by his uncles, John and Henry Churchill, for whom the track would eventually be named. The track officially opened on May 17, 1875, and the first Derby (one of four races at the track that day) was won by Aristides. The track’s famed grandstand, completed in 1895, is crowned by twin spires that have become a recognized emblem of the Kentucky Derby and Churchill Downs.

In the course of the Derby’s long history, many cultural and social conflicts have played out on the grounds of Churchill Downs. In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, gate jumping became widespread, and at times police resorted to violence in order to prevent unauthorized access. (Violence also occurred on the racetrack in 1933 when the jockeys of the winning horse, Brokers Tip, and the runner-up, Head Play, engaged in horseback fisticuffs as their mounts galloped toward the finish line, in what would become known as the “Fighting Finish.”) Race relations in the United States have also been reflected in African Americans’ participation in the Derby. In the 1870s, when the race debuted, Black jockeys dominated organized racing, and African Americans won 15 of the first 28 Kentucky Derbies. Those wins included Oliver Lewis’s victory in the first Derby, in which 13 of the 15 competing jockeys were Black; Lewis rode Aristides, a horse trained by a former slave, Ansel Williamson. Isaac Burns Murphy, born in Kentucky in 1861, was one of the greatest American jockeys of any era; he became the Derby’s first three-time winner (1884, 1890, and 1891). The last African American to win the Kentucky Derby as a jockey was James Winkfield, who won in 1901 and 1902. By the early 20th century, however, racial discrimination had increasingly curtailed African Americans’ role in American horse racing, and no African American would ride in the Kentucky Derby between 1921 and 2000, when Marlon St. Julien rode to a seventh-place finish.

Relatively few women have ridden as jockeys in the Kentucky Derby. The first, Diane Crump, finished 15th in 1970, and the sixth, Rosie Napravnik, finished fifth aboard Mylute in 2013 and last in 2014. Women owners have won the Derby numerous times, beginning in 1904 with Elwood’s victory for owner Laska Durnell. Since then, prominent Derby-winning female owners have included Helen Hay Whitney, Elizabeth Arden Graham, Ethel V. Mars, and Penny Chenery (whose winning horses included Secretariat, in 1973). In 1990 Frances Genter became the oldest Derby-winning owner at the age of 92 with the colt Unbridled.

Issues related to commercial rights, advertising, and the race’s large purse have also been part of the Kentucky Derby’s history since the mid-20th century. After a local television broadcast in 1949, the race was broadcast to a national audience in the United States in 1952, despite fears that televising the race would reduce attendance. Those fears proved unfounded, however, and subsequent broadcasts drew tens of millions of viewers, further solidifying the race’s popularity. In 2004, as a result of a court order, jockeys were allowed to wear corporate logos, overturning Churchill Down’s longstanding ban on such insignia. The following year, when the race’s purse was increased to $2 million, the number of horses receiving a share of the prize was also extended to include the fifth-place finisher.

In 2013 Churchill Downs implemented a points system to determine which horses could start in the Derby in the event that there were more than 20 entries. Under the new structure, which replaced a system that ranked horses on the basis of their earnings in graded stakes races, horses receive points according to their performance in specific Derby prep races as determined by Churchill Downs.