While royal watchers the world over focused on Westminster Abbey and the first coronation of a British monarch in nearly seven decades, the sporting world had other interests in mind this weekend. The first Saturday in May always brings with it the country’s longest continually-run sporting event, the Kentucky Derby.
Among major sporting events, the Super Bowl brings with it more television eyeballs than the Derby. The Indianapolis 500, held later in the month of May some 120 miles or so north of Louisville’s Churchill Downs, attracts more people.
But the Kentucky Derby stands as perhaps the nation’s premier spectator sport precisely because, more than any other event, the spectators are the sport.
Tragedy Overshadowing Triumph
Events leading up to this year’s 149th running of the Derby began with a happy commemoration. Half a century ago, Secretariat won the 1973 Derby in a record time of 1:59:40, completing the first leg of what would become a historic Triple Crown.
But in recent days, the focus shifted from celebrating thoroughbreds, both Secretariat then and this year’s Derby entrants now, to much more unpleasant subjects. The deaths of several horses in the run-up to Derby Day led to the suspension of trainer Saffie Joseph Jr., and the scratch of his Derby starter, Lord Miles. With two of the deaths, both of Joseph-trained horses, unexplained, and two other horses sustaining injuries on Wednesday during training, Churchill Downs preemptively scratched Lord Miles as a precautionary measure.
The tragedies continued on Derby Day itself, as
