LOUISVILLE, Ky. — As a record crowd cheered, American Pharoah rallied from behind and took aim at his remaining two rivals down the stretch. The bay colt and jockey Victor Espinoza surged to the lead with a furlong to go, then thundered across the finish line a length ahead in the 2015 Kentucky Derby.
“There’s nothing like winning the Kentucky Derby,” recalled Espinoza, a three-time winner of the “Run for the Roses” at Churchill Downs. “To me it’s the most important thing in horse racing.”
America’s longest continuously held sporting event turns 150 years old on Saturday. By age, it’s got the Westminster dog show beat by two years. The Kentucky Derby has survived two world wars, the Great Depression and pandemics, including COVID-19 in 2020, when it ran in virtual silence without the usual crowd of 150,000.
The first Saturday in May is Derby Day with all its accompanying pageantry, including fancy hats, fans dressed in their Sunday best, mint juleps served in souvenir glasses, the crowd singing “My Old Kentucky Home,” and the hand-sewn garland of red roses for the winner of the opening race of the Triple Crown series for thoroughbred racing.
It was the second-most watched sporting event of 2023, behind only the Super Bowl.