Kentucky Derby 2025: Horse racing fans won't let rain or mud stop their fun

Ahead of the 2025 Kentucky Derby, a thunderstorm poured rain all over fans. They aren't letting it stop their fun.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The first sign that the 151st running of the Kentucky Derby would be a wet one actually came on Friday.

The day before the race, a severe thunderstorm rolled into Louisville, soaking fans or sending them for cover during the Kentucky Oaks. Heavy winds blew over temporary rent-a-fences onto surrounding roads, bringing traffic to a halt around Churchill Downs.

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“The police stopped the bus!” one elderly woman trying to leave the racetrack Friday said on the phone in an angry southern drawl. “Whoever heard of such?”

Stopping or slowing down, after all, isn’t part of the race, and that goes for both the horses and the people at the Derby. On Saturday, even as the rain began in the morning and continued through the afternoon in a steady downpour, the party raged in kind.