Features

Arkansas doesn’t have a professional baseball, basketball, or football team. But the state is major league in one sport: thoroughbred horse racing.

The Kentucky Derby was fortunate to have Aristides as its first winner in 1875; his name summed up his character, and foreshadowed the nature of the Kentucky Derby itself.

And so the stage was set for that first Kentucky Derby, on Monday, May 17, 1875, the grand opening of the Louisville Jockey Club and Driving Park Association, later called Churchill Downs.

"The little red hoss'll keep the books today," McGrath confidently asserted.

With five Thoroughbred and three harness tracks, horse racing in the Bluegrass is an essential part of the state’s economic fabric, a driver for the employment of thousands and millions of dollars in taxes and income.

The landscape of betting on the Kentucky Derby has changed a lot since the inaugural edition in 1875.

The first go-round of pari-mutuel betting didn't catch on.
Bookmaking ruled the Churchill Downs betting scene until 1908.
1878 brought a $5 minimum...

As we are approaching the 150th running of the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on May 4, I will take a look back at my handful of favorite editions of the Run for the Roses.

One year after his brother Mage starred in the “Run for the Roses,” Dornoch aims to complete the first-ever sibling double in the Kentucky Derby.

If champion Fierceness can fulfill owner Mike Repole’s quest for the Kentucky Derby (G1), his victory would carry special meaning as a homebred.

Sierra Leone first made headlines when commanding the top price of $2.3 million as a yearling at Fasig-Tipton Saratoga.