Returning home to Kentucky, Clark organized the Louisville Jockey Club to raise money for building quality racing facilities just outside the city.

Under jockey Oliver Lewis, a colt named Aristides, who was trained by future Hall of Famer Ansel Williamson, won the inaugural Derby.

Initially a successful venue, the track ran into financial difficulties due to a protracted, gambling-related horseman boycott removing it from the upper echelons of racing that would last until just after the turn of the 20th century.

Under Winn, Churchill Downs prospered, and the Kentucky Derby then became the preeminent stakes race for three-year-old thoroughbred horses in North America.

In 1930, when Gallant Fox became the second horse to win all three races, sportswriter Charles Hatton brought the phrase into American usage.

Fueled by the media, public interest in the possibility of a "superhorse" that could win the Triple Crown began in the weeks leading up to the Derby.

This coverage was aired live in the Louisville market and sent to NBC as a kinescope newsreel recording for national broadcast.

Unexpectedly, the regulations at Kentucky thoroughbred race tracks were changed some years later, allowing horses to run on phenylbutazone.

[21] The fastest time ever run in the Derby was in 1973 at 1:59.4 minutes, when Secretariat broke the record set by Northern Dancer in 1964.

Using the thoroughbred racing convention of one length equaling one-fifth of a second to calculate Sham's time, he also finished in under two minutes.

Churchill Downs officials have cited the success of historical race wagering terminals at their Derby City Gaming facility in Louisville as a factor behind the purse increase.

[28] In 2017, a crowd of 158,070 watched Always Dreaming win the Derby, making it the seventh biggest attendance in the history of the racetrack.

The track reported a wagering total of $209.2 million from all the sources on all the races on the Kentucky Derby Day program.

On the Kentucky Derby race alone, the handle of TwinSpires was $20.1 million, which is a 22 percent rise compared to the prior year.

HM Queen Elizabeth II, on a visit to the United States, joined the racegoers at Churchill Downs in 2007.

[31] The 2004 Kentucky Derby marked the first time that jockeys—as a result of a court order—were allowed to wear corporate advertising logos on their clothing.

Brands, Inc. announced a corporate sponsorship deal to call the race "The Kentucky Derby presented by Yum!

However, most Churchill Downs patrons sip theirs from souvenir glasses (first offered in 1939 and available in revised form each year since) printed with all previous Derby winners.

[35] Also, burgoo, a thick stew of beef, chicken, pork, and vegetables, is a popular Kentucky dish served at the Derby.

[39] The event attracts spectators from a large area, flying in hundreds of private aircraft to Louisville International Airport.

Grand marshals In the weeks preceding the race, numerous activities took place for the Kentucky Derby Festival.

The largest margin of victory is 8 lengths, a feat tied by four different horses: Old Rosebud in 1914, Johnstown in 1939, Whirlaway in 1941, and Assault in 1946.

Isaac Murphy (1890–91), Jimmy Winkfield (1901–02), Ron Turcotte (1972–73), Eddie Delahoussaye (1982–83), Calvin Borel (2009–10), and Victor Espinoza (2014–15) are the only jockeys to win the Derby in back-to-back years.

Seventeen owners have won the Kentucky Derby multiple times with horses they fully or partially owned.

Winning both these races in the same year is referred to as an "Oaks/Derby Double;" 8 jockeys, 3 trainers, and 4 owners have accomplished this feat: *Until the 1950s, the Oaks was held several days or weeks after the Derby.

Winners of the Kentucky Derby can be connected to each other due to the practice of arranging horse breeding based on their previous success.