The 2024 Kentucky Derby was as thrilling as it gets. The 150th Run for the Roses finished in breathtaking fashion in a three-way photo finish in the closes race the event has seen since 1996. Many are still buzzing about the result, including some controversy involving jockey Tyler Gaffalione, who was riding runner-up Sierra Leone.
Gaffalione has been ordered to do a film review of the race with stewards on Thursday. Gaffalione could face discipline after the review.
The incident in question came on the final straightaway as Sierra Leone and Forever Young closed on eventual winner Mystik Dan. Gaffalione and Sierra Leone were positioned on the outside, with Forever Young to their left and Mystik Dan on the inside. As the horses neared the finish, Gaffalione reached out with his left arm and appeared to grab Forever Young, ridden by jockey Ryusei Sakai. He maintained contact for a few seconds as the horses appeared to be jostling for position.
Here is the statement from the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission issued on Monday:
“The Stewards review every race in Kentucky live and by video replay before posting it official and they followed the same procedure for the 150th running of the Kentucky Derby. After conducting their standard review of the race, determining no further review or investigation was necessary to conclude there were no incidents that altered the finish of the race, and seeing there were no objections filed, the Stewards posted the Kentucky Derby official. Following the race, the Stewards ordered Tyler Gaffalione, jockey aboard Sierra Leone, to film review on May 9, 2024. The Stewards conduct film reviews routinely to review the conduct of jockeys during a race. The Stewards, in their discretion, can take disciplinary action against a jockey following the review.”
It’s unclear what will happen as a result of the review, but SI’s Pat Forde speculated a short suspension would likely be the most that would come of it. And it could result in no punishment at all.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency issued a news release that raised eyebrows and revived suspicions in thoroughbred racing. In the first four months of 2024, the CBP’s Port of Cincinnati office intercepted eight shipments of venom from snakes, scorpions and spiders, plus other substances used as performance enhancers in horses.
The venoms have been used at racetracks as numbing agents for horses, allowing them to run through injuries. The shipments were coming from Mexico, according to the release, and some were headed to people “with nexus to racing or other horse performance venues.”
With the Kentucky Derby on Saturday, this drug bust was another periodic reminder of the drug cloud and attendant equine safety issues that hover over horse racing. So was the recent New York Times documentary, “Broken Horses,” which examined the spates of equine deaths that rocked the sport last year—including 12 at Churchill Downs in the weeks before and after the Derby, which led to an unprecedented shutdown and relocation of the track’s spring meet. And there was the news from Oaklawn Park in Arkansas about two horses under the care of trainer Tim Martin who died suddenly this week.
There are many people attempting to clean up the sport, and progress has been made. The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) is making strides as a regulatory body, though resistance persists in some corners. In general, racetrack equine deaths have declined over time (though there was a slight rise last year, up from 1.25 per 1,000 starts in 2022 to 1.32 in ’23). It’s harder now to sweep aside horse deaths without some measure of accountability.
But controversies past and present are always close at hand. Take a glance at the entries for the Derby, and a couple of names provide context for the inner conflicts of racing.
One is trainer Saffie Joseph, who will saddle Catalytic in the Run for the Roses. Last year at this time, Joseph was sent packing from Churchill after two of his horses died suddenly, Parents Pride and Chasing Artie. Joseph was suspended and his Derby colt, Lord Miles, was not allowed to run. “I was a scapegoat,” Joseph said at the time, inferring that the track had to find someone to punish amid a cluster of pre-Derby horse deaths.
By the end of June, Joseph had been reinstated at Churchill after a Kentucky Horse Racing Commission investigation. "We remain deeply concerned about the condition of Parents Pride and Chasing Artie that led to their sudden death,” said Bill Mudd, president and chief operating officer of Churchill Downs, Inc. “However, given the details available to us as a result of the KHRC investigation, there is no basis to continue Joseph's suspension.”
Joseph, who said he has never spoken to Churchill CEO Bill Carstanjen, is wondering where he needs to go to have his reputation restored after necropsies of the horses did not conclude anything nefarious.
“It crushes you,” he says. “I’m glad everything worked out and the truth was revealed. One of the horses had rat poison in it—they said that the level wasn’t enough to cause it, but they’re not going to say that. But if you look at the report, it says that. Did that cause it? We don’t know.
“I knew we didn’t do anything. It destroys you.”
Kentucky Derby horse Track Phantom is co-owned by Brewster and trained by Steve Asmussen.
Matt Stone/The Courier Journal / USA
Another name: Clark Brewster, part owner of Derby runner Track Phantom. He’s better known in racing as Bob Baffert’s voluble, caustic and contentious lawyer.
Baffert is the biggest trainer in the sport and also a current pariah at Churchill. He won a record-breaking seven Kentucky Derbys but had to give the last one back, the 2021 triumph by Medina Spirit, which was stripped after the horse tested positive for a prohibited race-day medication. That has spurred an endless feud between Baffert and Carstanjen.
Baffert initially was assessed a two-year ban from competition at Churchill, knocking him out of the 2022 and ’23 Derbys. Baffert sued Churchill in March ’22, but the case was dismissed last year. Then last July, the suspension was extended another year, with a Churchill release saying that "Mr. Baffert continues to peddle a false narrative concerning the failed drug test of Medina Spirit … A trainer who is unwilling to accept responsibility for multiple drug test failures in our highest-profile races cannot be trusted to avoid future misconduct."
That showdown added another chapter this spring when Amr Zedan, owner of the Baffert-trained standout Muth, attempted to sue his way into this Derby. That suit, which cited “Carstanjen egomania” in arguing that Baffert was being unfairly punished, also was unsuccessful. But Muth looms as a potential Preakness favorite and Triple Crown spoiler two weeks after the Derby.
On the slight chance that long-shot Track Phantom wins the Derby, keep the cameras rolling on Brewster. If he encounters Carstanjen in the winner’s circle it could be spicy.
Churchill Downs has gone to massive lengths to gussy itself up for the 150th Derby, sinking $200 million into remodeling its paddock area. The result is a three-level masterpiece of modern architecture that dramatically modernizes the place. It is primarily targeted for use one weekend a year by the rich, of course, but will also be enjoyed and appreciated by everyday racegoers for years to come.
There is change on the other side of the grandstand as well, less glamorous but more closely aligned to the survival of horse racing: The dirt racing surface has been redone. It’s darker and, some trainers said in recent days, deeper than it had been. A new fleet of tractors harrow the dirt between races and during morning training hours, and new methods of testing the track have been implemented. The horses are wearing biofeedback sensors that can help spot issues with stride and potentially flag developing injuries. A safety management committee composed of trainers, jockeys and other track workers meets once a week.
How much will all that help? It remains to be seen. But the changes are a tacit acknowledgment that the one thing that can kill horse racing is the killing of horses.
The 2024 Kentucky Derby has finally arrived, and it is a big one. Saturday's race will mark the 150th to take place at Churchill Downs in Louisville, KY. There will undoubtedly be some additional fanfare to celebrate the sesquicentennial race, but you can also expect the usual Derby fare — outrageous outfits, Mint Juleps, and an exciting race.
There will also be the usual assortment of famous and wealthy individuals in attendance. The Derby, among all its other qualities, is a gathering place for many highly successful individuals, from Tom Brady to Jack Harlow. Even the Queen of England attended back in 2007. Whenever the camera pans ove the crowd during the Derby the audience is almost assured to spot someone rich, famous, or both.
Those people don't have any trouble attending the Derby, what with their endless bank accounts and all. But what are ticket prices like for the general population?
An Infield General Admission ticket, which gets you in the door, costs $130. This is as basic as basic admission gets for the Derby. You get to go in through the gates to Churchill Downs, receive a program, enjoy what must be an overpriced specialty cocktail, and set up your own lawn chair to watch the Derby itself on the big board.
The next level of GA is listed as an Infield Final Turn General Admission ticket. The price point starts at $275, and it is as advertised. A standing room only ticket that lets you set up shop on the lawn right by the final turn. An exciting place to be, no matter how close the race is, and a fairly reasonable price upgrade compared to the Infield GA ticket.
A higher-level entry price comes in the form of a Frontside Plaza Walkaround ticket, which are already sold out. The starting price listed on the Derby website for such a ticket is $693. Sold as a two-day package for the Kentucky Oaks as well as the Derby, it's advertised as enjoying "a reimagined view of the Paddock with standing room access and frontside amenities." Regardless, that's a pretty penny, to be sure.
After that is when the real money starts rolling. The hospitality suites are all very expensive; the Silks Balcony & Loge, for example, charges $3,650 for entry. The Turf Club Balcony & Terrace costs $3,525 to get in. There are some more semi-reasonable options, such as the Champions Balcony & Loge ($1,775) or the Plaza Balcony & Loge ($1,775).
The nicest listed options appear to be the Woodford Reserve Paddock Club & Enclosure and the Spires Terrace & Suites. Neither has a price listed; interested parties must contact the Derby. As with many sporting events, the "cheap" options aren't very cheap and the nicest options can run up to thousands of dollars.
That's just about all you need to know about how much it costs to attend the Kentucky Derby in 2024. Enjoy!
The dominant news of the day in Kentucky on May 17, 1875, was the death of John C. Breckinridge, a U.S. Congressman turned Confederate Civil War general. Breckinridge died at the age of 54 at his home in Lexington, Ky., a divisive historical figure. His obituary filled several columns in the next day’s The Courier-Journal newspaper.
On page 4 of that Courier-Journal, a relatively modest headline read, “Derby Day.” The accompanying story chronicled the Kentucky Derby victory by the colt Aristides, in what the paper termed “a brilliant inauguration of the Louisville Jockey Club Association.” The founder of the association was Meriwether Lewis Clark Jr., grandson of William Clark, one of the principals in the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
The originator of the Derby traces his sire line to the early days of the United States, when President Thomas Jefferson commissioned two explorers in 1804 to traverse the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase. That’s how deeply intertwined the Kentucky Derby is with American history.
The Courier-Journal declared that first Derby day to be “a great success at every foist, and the promise of the future assured.” That promise has been kept. That future has remained assured far longer than the newspaper could have envisioned at the time.
The 150th Kentucky Derby will be run Saturday, the longest continuously contested sporting event in the United States. The race predates the automobile and the airplane, radio and television, Edison’s light bulb and Einstein’s relativity. It is the anchor of American sporting longevity.
Wars, contagions and economic calamities have not unmoored it. World War II necessitated moving the 1945 edition to June, but the race was run. The COVID-19 pandemic couldn’t cause a cancellation, though it did present such a threat that the 2020 race was pushed into September. Evolving societal tastes, concerns about equine safety, a million other things to do—none have interrupted an event that began with Ulysses S. Grant in office, one decade after Robert E. Lee surrendered to him at Appomattox Court House.
There were 37 states in the union at the time of the first running. The Rose Bowl, which began in 1901, is called the Granddaddy of Them All—but the Derby could be the Granddaddy’s daddy.
From 1877 winner Baden-Baden to Joe Biden, the Derby abides. From 1899 winner Manuel to Lin-Manuel Miranda, the Derby endures. From 1958 winner Tim Tam to TikTok, the Derby prevails.
In a world of unsettlingly swift change, the sameness of the Kentucky Derby is a powerful force. The traditions are immovable.
It has always been run at Churchill Downs, named for two men who were cousins of Clark and provided the land for the track in Louisville’s South End. It has always been run on the dirt course. It has always been a race for 3-year-old horses. It has, since 1896, been a 1¼-mile race, shortened from the 1½ miles of the first 21 runnings. That’s never going to change.
An overall view of Churchill Downs.
Matt Stone/The Courier Journal / USA
For 146 of the 149 previous editions, it has been run in May—and since 1946, the first Saturday, specifically. The dogwoods bloom, the Kentucky bluegrass grows thick and the Derby comes, every spring. On the calendar of iconic vernal sporting events, there is the Masters, the Derby and the Indianapolis 500. The Derby is 59 years older than the former and 36 years older than the latter.
Churchill isn’t quite Saint Andrews, which was established in 1843, but it’s ancient by American sporting venue standards. The signature Twin Spires were built atop the grandstand in 1895, 17 years before Fenway Park unveiled its Green Monster. The white-paneled grandstand has been remodeled many times, with additions and enhancements annually (a spectacular $200 million, multilevel paddock addition debuts this year), but it retains an old-world feel.
The history is palpable. The names of every Derby winner are on the grandstand walls in chronological order; the barn area on the backside of the track is timeless. Walk by Barn 42, peep in Stall 21, and it’s easy to imagine Secretariat’s chestnut head poking out of there 51 years ago, before Big Red broke the Derby record at 1 minute, 59⅖ seconds, a legend in the making. Listen to the horse’s hooves thump on the dirt during predawn training and you can envision the great Citation doing the same thing, in the same place, 76 years ago.
Ron Turcotte aboard Secretariat (left) edges ahead of Laffit Pincay Jr. aboard Sham (right) near the finish of the 99th Kentucky Derby in 1973.
The Courier-Journal-USA TODAY Sports
For the 150,000 patrons who will flood the massive property on Central Avenue on Saturday—at lamentably exclusive prices, with the cheapest admission tickets now soaring to $130—the same rituals play out every Derby day. What keeps these traditions alive? Simple but powerful things: cold, hard cash; nostalgia; vague romance; one hell of a party; and an incredibly dramatic two-minute race.
The allure of making a buck on who wins and loses is deeply ingrained in sporting culture, but horse racing might have been the original gambling gateway drug. It’s an old sport that embraced wagering early on and never let go. With most American sports betting illegal outside of Las Vegas for decades, racetracks were one place to get down a few bets without needing a bookie and a low profile.
Correspondingly, there are generations of Americans who went to the racetrack with their parents and saw them place wagers (maybe two dollars, maybe $2,000) at the windows. There is a throwback appeal to buying an actual, print Daily Racing Form or track program, decoding the hieroglyphics of the past-performance charts, then handing over paper currency in exchange for a betting slip. (More and more racing fans conduct business on their phones, of course, but mutuel clerks are by no means extinct.)
The romance stems from a slightly different form of nostalgia. Nobody wears formal attire to sporting events anymore—except at the Derby. This is the women-in-hats, men-in-seersucker capital of the world, a dress-up day that runs the fashion spectrum from classy to gaudy. (The fit checks help make the Derby a highly Instagrammable event, which boosts popularity with younger generations.)
A woman wears a derby hat for the 2023 Kentucky Derby.
Louisville Courier-Journal-USA TODAY
Mint juleps must be consumed, even if those purchased from track vendors would make high-end mixologists cringe. Cocktail culture has had a renaissance in America, but at Churchill Downs, it never left. The party aspect is very much part of the Derby experience for many patrons. (When it’s time to stagger out after about 10 hours on-site, a large number of those beautiful people are drunk, dazed and disheveled—and wishing they wore more sensible shoes.)
The race itself is exquisitely unchanged. The horses and jockeys still largely do their jobs in the same way they always have (though training methods and breeding philosophies have changed more substantially). Thoroughbreds are faster today than they were in the 1870s, but not necessarily faster than in the 1970s. (They’re also less durable.)
Then and now, they’re beautiful animals in motion and at rest, which is part of what has always drawn talented writers to the sport. When you combine all the elements of the Derby—the massive crowd, the revelry, the buildup to the razor-sharp tension of the competition itself—the elements of romantic storytelling are always present. From the great Sports Illustrated writer William Nack, recounting his first Derby as a teenager in 1958:
“I can still see the writers gathered around that coppery bright chestnut, Silky Sullivan, already a stretch-running immortal, as his groom gave him a sudsy, warm bath on the patch of grass outside his barn. … The sun was up and counting change at her old lemonade stand in the sky, and a thin patina of sweat made Tim Tam’s chocolate coat glisten in the tree-sifted light. He was coming to the race beautifully, his eyes afire, as though lit by a Bedouin torch passed down through generations, from the windswept deserts of Arabia to the ancient rolling leas of England and Kentucky.”
Similar passages could be written this week, though perhaps not as lyrically. The morning gallops, the sudsy baths, the sunbeams warming horses and humans—the eternal Derby week sensory experiences have been handed down. So, too, have the rhythms of the race—the explosion of noise when the starting gate opens, the charge into the first turn, the jockeys parrying for position through the backstretch and making bold moves on the far turn, the withering stretch run to the finish line as roars rain down, the jubilation of the winners. Two minutes and change packs a reliable emotional wallop.
Despite that sameness, each year carries its own sense of urgency. This is a once-in-a-lifetime event for the equine competitors. A thoroughbred foal crop of some 30,000 is whittled down across three years to no more than 20 who load in the starting gate. “You don’t get any do-overs,” says trainer Todd Pletcher, who will saddle favored Fierceness on Saturday.
Massive amounts of brain power are exerted in trying to figure out who will win, but then the gates open and randomness is in play. In a two-minute event, a single jockey calculation or miscalculation can make all the difference. A single stroke of good or bad racing luck can decide who goes down in history. Some horses, like Seattle Slew in 1977, confirm their greatness on Derby day. Some horses fluke their way into fame and fortune; the last two Derby winners, Rich Strike in 2022 and Mage in ’23, never won another race.
The first Kentucky Derby game story in The Courier-Journal in 1875 rhapsodized about the performance of Aristides: “Right gallantly did the game and speedy son of Leamington and Sarong answer the call on his forces, for he held his own all down the stretch in spite of the most determined rushes on the part of Volcano and Verdigris, and slashed under the wire the winner of one of the most fastest and hardest run races ever seen on the track.”
Saturday, they will run that race for the 150th time. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever will be.
