It’s often referred to as
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It’s America’s longest running sports event
The first Kentucky Derby was held on May 17,1875, when a crowd of 10,000 saw three-year-old chestnut colt Aristides, ridden by African-American jockey Oliver Lewis, triumph at Churchill Downs.
The Derby has been held at the same venue ever since, even during both World Wars and the Great Depression of the 1930s, making it the country’s longest continuously held sports event.
The 145th edition of the mile-and-a-quarter race for three-year-old thoroughbreds is expected to attract more than 150,000 spectators.
The Derby is the first leg of racing’s prestigious Triple Crown, which also consists of the Preakness Stakes in Baltimore and the Belmont Stakes in Belmont Park, New York.
It has literary history, and plenty of tradition
The Kentucky Derby has been covered by some of America’s most famous writers.
In 1925,New York sports columnist Bill Corum called the Derby the « Run for the Roses » because the winning horse gets draped in a garland of hundreds of red roses.
In 1935, legendary Tennessee-born sports writer Grantland Rice described the race like this:
« Those two minutes and a second or so of derby running carry more emotional thrills, per second, than anything sport can show. »
His phrase has since been shortened to describe the Derby as « the most exciting two minutes in sports » or « the greatest two minutes in sports. »
Much-loved traditions include the playing of « My Old Kentucky Home » — with the huge crowd singing along — as the Derby horses run to the start, and the mass consumption of mint juleps, the famous bourbon-based cocktail associated with the race.
