3 Reading Recommendations Ahead of Kentucky Derby 151

Breathing the spring air is all I need to catch a case of Derby Fever in the spring. That isn’t the case for everyone. The Sport of Kings was one of America’s top three sports in the 20th century. Horse racing has been relegated to back-page news for about 360 days a year. The Kentucky Derby is one of those exceptions.

Ahead of this year’s event, Netflix launched Race for the Crown, a behind-the-scenes docu-series that followed last year’s Triple Crown journey. It’s far from perfect, but it is an easy watch that will help a casual fan get fired up for horse racing season.

There was one small part of the series that got to the core of what makes this series so special. Trainer Larry Demeritte was told in 1996 that he had six months to live. He took West Saratoga to last year’s Kentucky Derby. It was a powerful segment, albeit one that fails to capture the impossible odds that this Bahamian had a horse in the Kentucky Derby. Jason Frakes did that in a profound profile that could bring you to tears.

There is a passion in this sport that is nearly impossible to articulate succinctly. If you’re struggling to catch that Kentucky Derby Fever, I have a few suggestions (all vary wildly in style) that will put you in the right headspace with only one week until the Fastest Two Minutes in Sports.

D is for Derby

Never judge a book by its cover. It may appear to be a children’s cook on the outside looking in, but it also serves as a classic coffee-table book.

For each letter of the alphabet, there is a short rhyme to teach your children about the pageantry that comes with the Derby. In smaller print, adults can learn lessons about the tradition that follows the race. “N is for names,” shares some of the sillier names for kids, and teaches adults the process of naming thoroughbreds. There are also interesting anecdotes on the fillies, bloodlines for the horses, and much more.

Pure Heart: The Thrilling Life and Death of Secretariat

You’ve probably heard that Secretariat’s heart was twice the size of an average horse. We learned this only after his death in this 1990 Sports Illustrated profile from William Nack, who spent the peak of his professional writing career as the beat reporter tasked to cover the sport’s greatest champion. The sport’s greatest champion received a proper send-off with one of the greatest sports features ever written.

I had never attended a Kentucky Derby or a yearling sale at Keeneland without driving out to Claiborne to visit Secretariat, often in the company of friends who had never seen him. On the long ride from Louisville, I would regale them with stories about the horse — how on that early morning in March of ’73 he had materialized out of the quickening blue darkness in the upper stretch at Belmont Park, his ears pinned back, running as fast as horses run; how he had lost the Wood Memorial and won the Derby, and how he had been bothered by a pigeon feather at Pimlico on the eve of the Preakness (at the end of this tale I would pluck the delicate, mashed feather out of my wallet, like a picture of my kids, to pass around the car); how on the morning of the Belmont Stakes he had burst from the barn like a stud horse going to the breeding shed and had walked around the outdoor ring on his hind legs, pawing at the sky; how he had once grabbed my notebook and refused to give it back, and how he had seized a rake in his teeth and begun raking the shed; and, finally, I told about that magical, unforgettable instant, frozen now in time, when he had turned for home, appearing out of a dark drizzle at Woodbine, near Toronto, in the last race of his career, 12 in front and steam puffing from his nostrils as from a factory whistle, bounding like some mythical beast out of Greek lore.

The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved

Hunter S. Thompson became a cult icon for his literary work in the late 20th century. This is the article that spawned gonzo journalism and served as the spark to his rise to stardom. The Louisville native wrote about the chaos that consumed the 1970 Kentucky Derby in a timeless treasure.

“The rest of the day blurs into madness.”