Lintner: A 2020 Kentucky Derby delay seems inevitable

Should top tracks across the country manage to stay open for racing through the COVID-19 pandemic, yet closed to an on-site audience, Churchill Downs still could run the 2020 Kentucky Derby on May 2.

However, the prospects of that are starting to feel longer than those of 65-1 Country House winning via a historic, controversial and continually debated disqualification.

In a dispatch issued over the weekend by Churchill Downs, track officials said, “the time-honored traditions of the Kentucky Derby are as much about the fans as the race itself,” with a further update promised in the next seven days.

My interpretation: This thing won’t run in May, not in front of an empty grandstand.

Racing can go on day to day without a huge hit thanks to advanced deposit wagering. But over the weekend, despite seeing just every other sport go on hiatus, handle didn't rise across the board. Perhaps that trend will change in seven weeks' time with growing awareness that racing is the only game going. 

But Triple Crown host tracks also rely on massive annual ticket revenue, and the Kentucky Derby is still going to be the Kentucky Derby whether they head to post in May or … this fall?

“Churchill is saying they’re not going to run the Derby without the people there,” Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert said Saturday, “so I’m hearing maybe June or in September.”

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Keep in mind that last year, Churchill Downs Inc. passed on the long-awaited opportunity to introduce expanded gaming at Arlington Park, citing another casino property it owns a share in near Chicago. Who’s to expect a company that wouldn’t give up some dollars in that instance would forego all its Derby ticket revenue?

It’s the nature of a publicly traded company: Stress the bottom line.

That’s not to say Churchill would be wrong to postpone the Derby. These are unprecedented times, and public safety trumps tradition. NCAA sports are canceled for the semester, and it'll be until at least April before any of the pros are back in action.

Racing is an exception to the rest. Thousands of Thoroughbred horses are in training, and they need to be exercised. Racing doesn't bring humans into particularly close contact when only necessary personnel are allowed at the track.

"Whenever they (postpone) the Masters," Baffert said of the golf tournament originally scheduled for April, "that’s like the Derby … I’ve never seen anything like this, it’s kinda scary. Hopefully they can get everything under control.”

MORE: Sunland Derby canceled over coronavirus concerns

Whenever it happens, the Derby will be massively attended, attracting broadcast TV attention and the country’s best 3-year-old horses.

In the meantime, Churchill officials “have been working carefully and diligently with relevant health experts and authorities to ensure the most responsible decision is made,” according to a statement.

There also are the dates of the other two Triple Crown races to consider — or whether there will be a Triple Crown on the line at all in 2020. The Preakness Stakes is scheduled for May 16, and the Belmont Stakes on June 6.

Should Churchill decide on a June date for the Derby, assuming the United States as a whole curbs a frightening trend with COVID-19, beginning the Triple Crown with the Preakness two weeks earlier makes sense. Run at 1 3/16 miles, Pimlico’s crown jewel could present a natural progression to a 1 1/4-mile Derby and the 1 1/2-mile Belmont.

Going into the fall brings into play another set of complications, particularly that Derby points preps conclude in April. Horses ready to run the best race of their lives early in the year often are not able to return to that level later.

Will more points races be added to the schedule? Could a new route to qualifying be required? And might horses cycling back into form, such as the Grade 1 winner Maxfield, re-enter the Derby picture?

There’s much left to find out on what’s now a truly unique road to the Derby.

The race, by the way, has renewed on the first Saturday in May each year since 1946. In 1945, the Derby was run on June 9 with World War II ongoing.

It takes something seismic to shift America’s longest continually running major sporting event. We're starting to feel it.