Published by Caulfield and Shook, Inc of Louisville, this post card is entitled "An Exciting Finish At Churchill Downs." Photographers James Caufield and Frank W. Shook founded their studio in 1903, and it became the Derby's official photographer in 1924. (University of Kentucky Libraries Special Collections Research Center, Post Card Collection)

To paraphrase a wiseguy I once knew, this Saturday’s Kentucky Derby — the 150th edition of the famed horse race — is made history. From its first running in 1875 as the feature race at a just opened Churchill Downs in Louisville to its current place atop a sports and culture pinnacle, its narrative has been a burgoo of glory and hype, continuity and change.????

Start with the beginning and the backstory. Modeled after England’s Epsom Derby, the first Kentucky Derby was won in an upset by a chestnut colt named Aristides, who was owned by gambler H. Price McGrath and bred on his stud farm near Lexington, and trained and ridden by two African American horsemen from the Bluegrass, Ansel Williamson and Oliver Lewis. It was a 1 ? mile race (shortened to 1 ? miles in 1896) for three-year olds and 15 of them ran. Contemporary accounts put the crowd as large — 10,000 estimated — the weather fair and the atmosphere festive.?

The race and its track, which was developed by Meriwether Lewis Clark, grandson of William Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition, soon gained a foothold in a booming industry.

It was the Gilded Age of the late 1800s — a time of unbridled opportunity and crass exploitation when robber barons and labor strikes, railroads and skyscrapers, immigrant millions, diamond-studded dinners and corrupt politics stirred the land — and horse racing was America’s national sport. Racetracks numbered more than 300 and drew large crowds, from sweatshop workers to nouveau aristocrats. On the same day in 1872, for example, 40,000 people filled Monmouth Park in New Jersey, while just 300 watched a professional baseball game at a Brooklyn field. And in 1887, Congress adjourned for a match race at Pimlico in Baltimore.?

The bubble burst in the early 1900s with the rise of the Progressive Movement and its puritanical social agenda. Gambling on horses (and all else) was frowned on and legislated against and racing declined dramatically. By 1908, only 25 tracks were operating in the country. The pendulum swung after World War I as anti-gambling fervor cooled. Tracks reopened and pari-mutuel betting was widespread. Racing became Hollywood’s “sport of kings” and its stands were full and its stars — Man o’War, War Admiral, Seabiscuit, Whirlaway, Citation and others? —? were household names.?

Amid those national tides, the Derby and Churchill Downs struggled, at least for a while. A brouhaha over bookmakers in 1886 led to a de facto boycott of the race by Eastern horse owners that lasted some 25 years. The Derby lost prominence and Churchill floundered under financial difficulties. In 1902, the track, which had never been profitable, faced closure and was bought by a partnership formed by Matt Winn, a Louisville salesman and merchant tailor.?

A comeback began when Winn’s group took over and soon accelerated. Winn, who made a Time magazine cover in 1937, was named president of Churchill in 1938. An industry celebrity and gifted promoter, he cultivated and wined and dined the national media, and with their help and hype made the Derby bucket-list Americana. It became the race horsemen — owners, trainers, jockeys, grooms and hot walkers — wanted to win and the public was fascinated by and wanted to attend.?

The momentum and mystique Winn created has continued, largely unabated, since his death in 1949. The New York Times called him “a prophet (who) preached the gospel of racing through the United States. . . . He alone made it (the Derby) what it is today.” For most of the mid and late 1900s, that meant, more than anything, embracing and sustaining a status quo. As Tom Meeker, the track’s president from 1984 to 2006, put it, Churchill’s business was to “tweak the Derby at the margins but leave the main canvas alone.”??

That approach has shifted markedly in recent decades. Yes, the race itself — 1 ? miles under the iconic 1895 twin spires — remains the same. But much of its surrounding milieu has changed. What was a sprawling labyrinth of an urban track — with old brick walkways, beadboard betting windows, hidden corridors, trough urinals in men’s rooms and more— has been morphing into a modern (albeit still sprawling) racing and entertainment facility.?

Behind the transformation is Churchill Downs Inc., the track’s corporate parent. Formed in 1950,? CDI has become a publicly-traded, nationally leading racing, online wagering and gaming company, with some 27 casinos and racing properties across 14 states. Over the past two plus decades, the company has spent more than $450 million on brick-and-mortar capital projects, including most recently a three-year, $335 million one that’s added new seating and hospitality areas and was capped by a $200 million redesigned paddock that opened last week.

Amid these projects, CDI has prospered, with record net revenue of $2.5 billion last year, up 36% from 2022. Numbers for the Derby last year showed a record $288.7 million wagered from all sources on Derby day, up 5% from 2022’s record. Attendance of 150,335 was up 2% from 2022 (the record of 170,513 was set in 2015). The race attracted 14.8 million viewers on NBC, down from 16 million in 2022.?

These bottom lines should assure the Derby and its brand a rosy future. But there’s an elephant — American Thoroughbred racing — in the room.

Back to the past. Even with the Derby at the forefront, racing’s glory days didn’t last. The landscape changed. By the 1960s, the sport and industry began a decline that’s accelerated over the subsequent decades. With isolated exceptions —? most notably Secretariat in the 1970s — racing has receded in the national consciousness. The Derby aside, it’s on few people’s radar anymore. Its default spot on an ESPN app, for instance, is on a list with lacrosse, cricket, badminton, kabaddi and a host of “more sports.”?

Some reasons for racing’s decline — an aging and shrinking fan base; the rise and popularity of the NBA and NFL, marginal TV coverage and competition from state lotteries, casino gambling and sports betting —? have been societal and demographic and arguably out of the industry’s direct control.?

But others have been primarily self-inflicted and much more damaging. Over the past decade alone, two of them — drug scandals and on-track horse deaths — have become recurring national news. The drug scandals have involved several prominent trainers and led to suspensions and federal indictments. And the deaths have forced leading tracks, including Churchill and Santa Anita Park in California, to close for investigations of surfaces and training practices.?

As part of all this, racing’s field sizes have shrunk and major tracks, including Hollywood Park in Los Angeles and Arlington Park in Chicago, have shut down. The industry’s main attempt to address its decline has been the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA), which aims to develop and implement national, uniform safety, anti-doping and medication rules. It took effect last year.

As American racing’s city on a hill, the Derby had avoided the industry’s woes. But in 2021, that changed when Medina Spirit, who finished first in the Derby, was disqualified after failing a post-race drug test. A protracted and very public legal battle involving the horse’s high-profile trainer, Bob Baffert, owner Amr Zedan and Churchill followed. The track prevailed and Baffert was banned from Churchill for what is now a third year.

The incident is mostly over. But it took a toll. It stripped the Derby, now in year 150, of some of its curated transcendence and brought it closer to a troubled industry’s mean. And it raised the question of how big — and destructive — its elephant in the room might become.

One of the iconic spires frames fleet Thoroughbreds at Churchill Downs. (Photo by Tom Eblen)

Fifty years ago, when Secretariat set track records winning the Kentucky Derby and the Triple Crown and made the cover of Time magazine, horse racing in America mattered.?

The narrative — for the sport, the industry, one of its major tracks and its signature event — is different now and defined more by change, controversy and cultural reassessment than a beloved and heroic horse.?

Start with the signature event. When it’s run at Churchill Downs in Louisville for the 149th time Saturday, the Kentucky Derby’s usual mosaic — 20 horses and 160,000 people; big-hatted women and money-clipped men; pre-mixed juleps; internet celebrities on a red carpet; condomed infielders; William Faulkner reverence and Hunter S. Thompson depraved hustle — will be evident.

But framing that familiar scene, the brick-and-mortar transformation of Churchill Downs will be unmistakable. The focal point this year is a $90 million “First Turn Experience” that replaces temporary structures with a soccer stadium-sized facility with permanent seating and a hospitality club. It’s the second phase of a capital project that last year resulted in a $45 million “Homestretch Club” that replaced outdoor bleachers with stadium seats, lounges and a 95-foot long bar and next year will feature the completion of a $200 million paddock redesign.?

The project builds on more than two decades of previous changes, including a $121 million clubhouse and grandstand renovation; new owners’ suites; and a private VIP area with Derby seats listed on online sites at $30,000 plus. The track’s iconic (and trademarked) twin spires remain, but increasingly as a stand-alone in a corporate mise en scène that reflects Churchill Downs Inc. and its position as a nationally leading racing, online wagering and gaming entertainment company.?

Not a good look for racing

Though it’s not just about one horse race — or even racing — anymore, Churchill has found itself in the middle of racing-related problems and controversies. The most notable of them is the track’s protracted, nationally-publicized battle with Bob Baffert, arguably the sport’s highest profile personality. The dispute began in 2021 when Medina Spirit, trained by Baffert, finished first in the Derby but failed a drug test and was disqualified. Baffert, who in the last few years has had other top horses show post-race positives, and owner Amr Zeden sued the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, claiming the drug in question, betamethasone, had been administered legally and had not affected their horse’s performance.?

Medina Spirit collapsed and died of an apparent heart attack following a workout at Santa Anita Park in California in December 2021. Early last year, the Racing Commission upheld the disqualification and suspended Baffert from training for 90 days. Churchill then banned Baffert from its tracks for two years. Baffert sued Churchill over the ban, but this February a federal court in Louisville denied his request for an injunction and dismissed all but one of his claims.?

The case isn’t a good look for racing, Churchill or the Derby. It underscores the current state of American racing, a once-popular sport long in need of life-support, with a shrinking and aging fan base, marginal media coverage and competition from casinos, lotteries and sports betting.? (Kentucky earlier this year became the 37th state to legalize sports betting. The law, which takes effect at the end of June, allows race tracks to operate sports betting facilities.)

Secretariat’s popularity gave racing a short-term lift, but in the decades since he passed, numerous drug scandals and on-track horse deaths — including four this week at Churchill Downs, one involving a horse training for the Derby — have exposed the sport’s underbelly.?

The extent of the problem was highlighted by a 2020 indictment of 27 people (four others were added later) on federal charges connected to the use of performance-enhancing drugs on racehorses. Among them were prominent trainers Jorge Navarro and Jason Servis (whose Maximum Security finished first in the 2019 Derby but was disqualified for racing interference). Both pleaded guilty. Navarro is now in prison and Servis will be sentenced this month.

In response to these situations and following years of support from and lobbying by industry and outside groups — from the The Jockey Club to PETA — Congress in 2020 authorized the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) to develop and implement a national, uniform set of safety and anti-doping and medication rules. After some legal challenges, HISA is set to take full effect in most states later this month.?

As a piece of Americana, the Derby had largely been immune to racing’s decline and troubles and had been instead its city on a hill, with overflow attendance, record betting handle ($179 million last year) and an international brand. The Baffert/Medina Spirit case, and its association with the pervasive problems that triggered HISA, has punctured that immunity and moved the race’s — and Churchill’s — image closer to the industry mean.?

Horse race as socio-cultural Rorschach test?

A comparable shift has occurred on the Derby’s cultural front. Since Churchill’s long-time impresario and later president Matt Winn (who made a cover of Time magazine in 1937), molded it into a bucket-list event a century ago, the Derby has been widely seen as a rite of spring, loved or hated, in and outside of Kentucky. But what was accepted as a bacchanal and fodder for literature, lore and journalism seems to be morphing into a contemporary socio-cultural Rorschach test.?

Last year, for example, the Lexington Herald-Leader, the state’s second-largest newspaper, ran a full front-page story headlined “Does the Kentucky Derby still matter?” The story consisted of two in-house opinions. A sports reporter, citing tradition and impact, said it does. The paper’s editorial writer, citing the Baffert case and drug scandals, called the event “an acquired taste” that matters mostly to “a small group of rich people and a large group of drunk people.”

Along similar lines, there was a resurrected “My Old Kentucky Home” debate last year, fueled by a book by Emily Bingham, a Bellarmine University visiting fellow and descendant of a privileged Louisville family that used to publish the Courier Journal, the state’s largest newspaper.?

Stephen Foster’s 1853 sentimental ballad, influenced by Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” has had a complicated and racially tainted legacy. It’s Kentucky’s state song, sung by the Churchill crowd during the Derby post parade since the Matt Winn era, but objections to it as racist and a paean to plantation life have been recurring. Bingham called the song “unredeemable” and said “its public performance in spaces led and controlled by white Americans is by definition an act of white supremacy.”?

Her dialectic — taken up by local and national media commentators — notwithstanding, the great African American singer, actor and civil rights and political activist Paul Robeson recorded a moving version of the song in 1958. And prominent African American abolitionist and statesman Frederick Douglass remarked in his 1855 autobiographical narrative “My Bondage and My Freedom” that the song “awakens sympathies for the slave, in which antislavery principles take root, grow, and flourish.”?

What to make of the inkblot? After considering the issue, which has resurfaced this year, Churchill announced it will continue presenting the song. The Derby — in part at least and for good or bad — is still about tradition and continuity.