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On Saturday, May 5, ahead of the 144th Kentucky Derby, heavy rain began falling in Louisville, Kentucky, making the track at Churchill Downs quite muddy.
As most horse-racing aficionados know, a muddy track can have an effect on some horses’ abilities to run. Some horses seem to excel in the rain, taking on the heavy dirt with ease, while others have a more challenging time maneuvering through the thicker, muddy earth.
Sloppy conditions also take their toll on the jockeys; if a jockey’s horse isn’t the front-runner, he or she is going to be dealing with plenty of mud being kicked up by the horses in front of his or her mount. As the New Yorker revealed, in a story about the Ortiz brothers — jockeys Jose and Irad Jr., who will be riding the No. 6 horse, Good Magic, and the No. 9 horse, Hofburg, respectively, in the2018 Derby — a jockey’s gear is subject to change, based on conditions.
“When the track is muddy, jockeys will wear up to five pairs of plastic riding goggles layered on top of one another, so that they can quickly peel away the outermost lenses as soon as they become encrusted with flying muck; losing visibility, even for a microsecond, can be disastrous. Today, sunny and dry, was a three-goggle day,” the New Yorker story reads.
The weather in Louisville seems to have calmed a bit this afternoon, but light rain continues to fall in the area. There is significant cloud cover and it doesn’t look like the rain is going to stop before the Run for the Roses.
According to the Weather Channel, there is a 40 percent chance of rain at 6 p.m., but that drops to 15 percent at 7 p.m. The race begins at 6:50 p.m. Even if the rain has stopped by then, the dirt track will still be muddy after being saturated with rain most of the day.
You can see a Doppler Radar over Kentucky in the video below.
The following photo shows the track at Churchill downs.
Track condition at Churchill Downs: Muddy. No signs of the light rain letting up
Since some horses tend to race better in the mud, the odds have shifted quite a bit today. Now, My Boy Jack is a frontrunner (he was previously 30:1), alongside Audible and Justify. Former favorite Magnum Moon has been pushed to 13:1.
However, in 2017, a muddy track didn’t affect Derby favorite Always Dreaming, who came in first — albeit a bit slower than expected at 2:03.59 — despite a muddy track.
“The sloppy track began to dry, but then another downpour three hours before post time guaranteed a messy racing surface. It turns out that was ideal for Always Dreaming. All day on Friday, most horses that gained the lead were able to stay there. Always Dreaming drew the No. 5 post position in the Derby, but Velazquez said his colt bobbled at the start. ‘I wasn’t happy with his first step,’ said Velazquez. ‘So I got him going on the second step.’ State of Honor, who went off at 54–1 and would finish 19th, battled for the lead. Velazquez let him have it as the crowded field reached the first turn,” Sports Illustrated reported.
