It’s later this year due to the pandemic, but the 146th Kentucky Derby will happen after all. The Run for the Roses will happen Saturday and be broadcast live from Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky. Belmont Stakes winner Tiz the Law is the favorite, and he could win a very unique Triple Crown, one where the Kentucky Derby was not the first big race of the season.
The race will air on NBC and stream live on NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports app. Coverage on Saturday starts at 2:30 p.m. ET. Post time is set for approximately 7:01 p.m. ET, so make sure you have your mint julep in hand and are settled in by 6:59 p.m. NBCSports.com, the NBC Sports app, and Peacock – NBCUniversal’s streaming service – will have a full replay after the race is run.
The race is being run without fans in the stands, and the broadcast crew will be socially distanced. Highlights of NBC’s coverage on Saturday include seven live races in the Kentucky Derby program; a feature on Finnick the Fierce, a one-eyed gelding who is the only horse in the Derby field to finish ahead of Tiz the Law in a race; and a history of Black jockeys in the Kentucky Derby, who rode the winning horses in 15 of the first 28 runnings in the race’s history. As part of the Kentucky Derby coverage, NBC News’ Blayne Alexander will also be in Louisville reporting on the Black Lives Matter protests as well as the local and national impact of the fatal shooting of 26-year-old Breonna Taylor by police while she slept in her home, which was approximately two and a half miles from Churchill Downs.
This year’s Kentucky Derby moved from the first Saturday in May to the first Saturday in September, marking the first time since 1931 that the Triple Crown races have not been run in the traditional Kentucky Derby-Preakness Stakes-Belmont Stakes sequence. Tiz the Law won the Belmont Stakes – this year’s first leg – by three and three quarter lengths on June 20. The Preakness Stakes is Saturday, Oct. 3.
The 2020 Kentucky Derby airs Saturday, Sept. 5 at approximately 7:01 p.m. ET/6:01 p.m. CT on NBC.
