Kentucky Derby now set for September due to virus

LOUISVILLE (AP):

Change does not come easily to the Kentucky Derby.

Fans sip mint juleps, don fancy hats and dress clothes, and sing to the melancholy strains of My Old Kentucky Home as the thoroughbreds step on to the track on the first Saturday in May. It has always made the Derby as much a piece of Americana as a horse race.

The country’s longest continuously held sports event thrives on this tradition, especially its date on the calendar.

That changed Tuesday.

Churchill Downs postponed the Derby until September, the latest rite of spring in sports to be struck by the new coronavirus along with the Masters, March Madness and baseball season. Instead of May 2, the race will be run September 5, kicking off Labor Day weekend.

“It’s good that they didn’t cancel it,” said Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert, who has several top contenders that could earn him a record-tying sixth Derby victory.

However, Baffert added, “Until they get their arms around this virus, we’re all day-to-day.”

It’s the first time the Derby won’t be held on the first Saturday in May since 1945, when it was run June 9. The federal government suspended horse racing nationwide for most of the first half of the year before World War II ended in early May, but not in time to hold the opening leg of the Triple Crown that month.

“We’ll roll with the punches,” Bill Carstanjen, CEO of Churchill Downs Inc, said during a conference call, “and feel very, very good that September is the right date”.

The date change still must be approved by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission at its meeting Thursday. The date belonged to smaller Ellis Park, which struck a deal with Churchill Downs. Skip Sayre, spokesman for Ellis Entertainment, said both sides agreed to keep the amount of money involved confidential.

Willing to accommodate

“We were more than willing to accommodate,” Sayre said. “Our agreement with Churchill keeps us whole from a financial perspective.”

Still to be decided are the dates of the next two legs of horse racing’s showcase series – the Preakness and Belmont.

Carstanjen said the September date was chosen after talks with NBC Sports, which televises the Triple Crown races, based on the limited number of sports events that weekend and hotel availability in Louisville.

Churchill Downs clearly wasn’t interested in running the 146th Derby without fans in the stands, which is what other tracks have been doing, including Santa Anita in California, Oaklawn in Arkansas, and the Fair Grounds in Louisiana.

“We feel confident we are going to run the Kentucky Derby and run it with a crowd,” Carstanjen said. “It’s a participatory event.”

The Derby was first run in 1875 and has gone uninterrupted, even through the Great Depression and World Wars I and II.