Everything to expect at tomorrow's Kentucky Derby

Horse racingFrom The Sports Desk: Derby day eveSteve Kornacki and Tim Layden prep you for the Kentucky Derby.Listen to this article with a free account00:0000:00Fans dress up for the Kentucky Derby in 2025.Grace Bradley / Getty Images fileShareAdd NBC News to GoogleMay 1, 2026, 3:30 PM EDTBy Tim Layden, NBC Sports, Steve Kornacki and Joe Prince-Wright, NBC SportsClear your schedule, and get your mint julep ready. The Kentucky Derby is tomorrow! Of the 151 iterations of the race, NBC Sports’ Tim Layden has covered 22. He explains why the Derby is both the most consistent — and unpredictable — of all sporting events. Also, our numbers guy Steve Kornacki analyzed the Derby field and identified some best bets.Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.Tomorrow, our NBC News sports team will be live-blogging the Derby all day, keeping you up to date on all the biggest hats and the long shots. Check the NBC News website for continuing coverage, too.Kentucky DerbyThe Kentucky Derby is the most static and reliable piece of the American sports calendar. It has been contested almost annually without interruption since 10 years after the end of the Civil War, and on the first Saturday in May for almost a century.But the Derby is also one of the most unpredictable sporting events of the year. Hunter S. Thompson famously called it “Decadent and Depraved,” for reasons very unrelated to horse racing. It could just as well be called “Chaotic and Capricious.”I’ve seen dominant performances by deserving winners like Smarty Jones (2004), American Pharoah (2015) and Justify (2018). But I’ve also seen favorites get beaten, like Fierceness two years ago, because a very good colt was not good at all on Derby Saturday and finished 15th, and Journalism last year, because a very good colt was actually quite good on Derby Saturday but another horse — Sovereignty — was strikingly better and would prove in subsequent months to be the best...