Kentucky Derby Is Greatest Thoroughbred Day
Run For the Roses Recognized Globally, First Run in 1875
Apr 6, 2009
First run in 1875 and won by Aristides, America's Kentucky Derby is globally recognized. Each year its winner is stamped as a world champion, regardless of what other races he, or she, may win, or lose.
Before the first Saturday in May arrives, horse players and those who just enjoy the Sport of Kings for its magnificent animals have studied pedigree charts and read racing forms to determine who they think might be the fairest Thoroughbred of them all. For the fabulous, annual Run for the Roses is held that Saturday, easily Thoroughbred racing's biggest day in the United States.
The Derby Thoroughbred Is A Two-Minute Athlete
The Kentucky Derby is almost a reverent competitive ritual in horse racing. It can cause strong hearts to become faint as a mass of running, pounding horses collectively supporting thousands of pounds slants precariously around the final turn. Human hearts pound, too, in the lenghtening shadows of the old twin spires. The steeds gather themselves for their best effort, jockey for position heading for a thin wire sewn like a delicate, straight strand from a spider's web across the track in front of them. Repeatedly striking hooves to flying dirt, the four-footed athletes barrel to their last post and to the silver thread strung above their heads.
The wire beckons. In the throbbing grandstand, and in the packed infield, and in front of televisions worldwide, cheering, screaming human vocal cords are stretched to their limits. The wire remains steady, waiting above the ribbon of track that reverberates under the thundering of as many as eighty galloping hooves, waiting for the strong ones of stamina, speed and courage and heart.
And a new son of a champion crosses the wire, a champion in his own right. Flashbulbs are rampant, smiles are wide, generous with triumph. An equine tosses high his head, accepting the banquet of red flowers at his neck, acknowledging victory. Far away in a field of green, his sire's muzzle points into the pasture winds and smells the roses of his champion son's momentus right of passage.
Indeed, worthily revered, the Kentucky Derby is an astounding two-minute sports spectacle.
Derby Winners Always Have Another Gate
In the 1930s, the idea of letting a three-race competition determine the season's superior three-year-old Thoroughbred was adopted. The races, all three of which had already been held annually for three-year-olds for over forty years, became known as the Triple Crown. The 1930s produced three Triple Crown champions.
Sir Barton was the only horse to sweep all three races, the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes, in a single season prior to the official acknowledgment of a Triple Crown champion. Sir Barton achieved the feat in 1919. He eventually became the earliest recognized Thoroughbred on the list of the historic "lone eleven".
Affirmed Last Triple Crown Winner
Only eleven three-year-olds in the long history of American Thoroughbred racing have won all three Triple Crown contests. That was last accomplished in 1978 by Affirmed.
The Belmont Stakes came into existence in 1867, initially won by the filly Ruthless. In 1873, Survivor claimed the inaugural Preakness title.
However, it is the Kentucky Derby that remains the most prestigious of American Thoroughbred races. And it is a single, definitive event noted around the world, the result of which instantly translates as "Thoroughbred champion".
