On this date… 3 May 1952
First National TV Broadcast of Kentucky Derby
And, they’re off! Called “The Fastest Two Minutes of Sports” or sometimes "The Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports," the Kentucky Derby sprints as the first leg of the Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing. Run annually on the first Saturday in May, the Kentucky Derby was first broadcast nationally on this date, 3 May 1952, after running for more than 75 years already. Along with its sister race the Kentucky Oaks, the Kentucky Derby has run continuously at the same site since its first edition, though they were rescheduled twice, once in 1945 due to WWII, and the other time in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic (because everything that year was horrid, right?). Indeed, the Derby and the Oaks are the oldest continuously held major sporting events in the US.
Despite being the first 1.25 mile leg of the Triple Crown, the Kentucky Derby was the last of the races to be established, with the Belmont Stakes first run in 1867, and the Preakness established in 1873. Colonel Meriwether Lewis Clark Jr, the grandson of William Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition, established the Derby in 1875. Clark had traveled to England in 1872 where he attended the English Derby at Epsom Downs in Surrey, outside of London, which had been running for nearly 100 years. Clark then went to Paris to visit a group of racing enthusiasts who had formed the French Jockey Club and organized the Grand Prix de Paris at Longchamp, at the time one of the greatest races in France. After he returned home to Kentucky, Clark raised money to build a quality racing facility near Louisville. He leased the land for the complex from his uncles John and Henry Churchill, and the track soon became known as Churchill Downs.
The Derby is the most-watched and most-attended horse race in the US, and its 2024 edition marks the 150th running of the race. The two weeks leading up to the Derby are full of festivities in the Kentucky Derby Festival, including “Thunder Over Louisville,” an airshow and fireworks display, which launch the festivities. It concludes with the "The Run for the Roses," as the Derby is called, because the winning horse receives a lush blanket of 554 red roses.
During the 150 years of the event, only 13 horses have won the coveted Triple Crown by winning all three races, and none have ever repeated the feat. Indeed, since the race is designed for three-year-old Thoroughbreds, at a distance of 1 and 1/4 miles (10 furlongs; 2,012 meters), a horse could only ever compete once.
The last Triple Crown winner was Justify in 2018, and perhaps the most is Secretariat, who achieved the feat in 1973. In his Derby race, Secretariat set – and still holds – the fastest time record 1:59.4. In the incredible run, Secretariat increased his speed during each quarter-mile segment, almost unheard of for any race of any type. Until then, no horse had won the Derby in less than 2 minutes, and the accomplishment wouldn’t happen again until Monarchos ran the race in 1:59.97 in 2001. During its first two decades when the Derby was run at 1.5 miles, the record was 2:34.5, set by Spokane in 1889. Will the Derby winner in tomorrow’s race (being the first Saturday of May) become the next Triple Crown winner, set a record, or will it just be content to win the $5 million purse? Watch and find out.