Kentucky Derby 2026: Immortality and ebb

The field moves into the first turn of the 150th running of the Kentucky Derby in 2024. (Michael Reaves/Getty Images) There’s a gaping asymmetry between the Kentucky Derby and American horse racing. The nation’s most famous race, to be run for the 152nd time at Churchill Downs in Louisville Saturday, stands as the shining city on a hill amid the growing rubble of its sport and industry.

A neophyte, if one can be found in the age of AI, might marvel at the prosperity of one and malady of the other. Start with the prosperity. For the greater part of a century, the Derby has been the dream of owners, trainers, jockeys, grooms, hot walkers — racing’s backbone people.

The golden ring. Secretariat won it, and Aristides first and Sovereignty last year and a multitude of others in between, greats and one-hit wonders, their names etched in the annals of sport. Bigger than the race is its cosmic surround.

The manicured, millionaire-plus stud and broodmare farms of the Bluegrass, the limestone fences lining historic pikes, the karst creeks that flow past bourbon distilleries and into the narrow, winding river that gave the state its name and, at the center of it all, the eclectic Ohio River city and its storied and sprawling track in the middle of a (diminishing) blue-collar neighborhood. Each year, with a Kentucky spring in bloom and Louisville primed after a weeks-long festival, more than 140,000 people pack Churchill Downs to be part of a bucket-list experience. That the event’s nostalgic Americana has been long cultivated and increasingly orchestrated doesn’t seem to deter them.