Medina Spirit wins 147th Kentucky Derby as Breonna Taylor protesters get arrested at the Black Lives Matter march in the Derby City in Louisville, Ky.
Pictured are 2021 Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit, which was ridden by jockey John R. Velazquez, and the late Breonna Taylor, whom Louisville Metro police gunned down in March of 2020.
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By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor-in-chief
CLEVELANDURBANNEWS.COM, LOUISVILLE, Kentucky-Ridden by jockey John R, Velazquez and with odds of 12-1, Medina Spirit (pictured) edged Mandaloun by a half length to win the 147th running of the Kentucky Derby Saturday at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky as four protesters were arrested that day following a Black Lives Matter protest for Breonna Taylor held in the Derby City.
Hot Rod Charlie was another half-length back in third, and Essential Quality, the post-time favorite at 5-2, finished nearby in fourth place. Bourbonic, a colt trained by Todd A. Pletcher and ridden by Jockey Kendrick Carmouche, the first Black jockey to ride a horse in a Derby race since Kevin Krigger in 2013, came in 13th place.
After winning Saturday's Derby, the first leg of the Triple Crown, Medina Spirit, which paid $26.20 on a $2 win bet, is positioned to possibly win the Triple Crown this year, if he wins the Preakness and Belmont Stakes, the second and third legs of the Triple Crown respectively.
This year's Kentucky Derby purse was $3 million, the same amount as last year and will be split between the top five finishers, and first place paid $1.8 million, which Medina Spirit will carry home. It was the fourth Kentucky Derby victory for Velazquez behind the all-time record shared by jockeys Eddie Arcaro and Bill Hartack.
"There's no words to describe it," Velazquez said of the win by the long-shot horse that he rode to victory, upsetting the status quo. "This doesn't get old."
Velazquez teamed with trainer Bob Baffert for the second year in a row to win the Derby, Baffert becoming the first trainer in the 147-year history of the race to win seven Derby races.Last year Velazquez and Baffert brought home a Derby win with Authentic, who went on to lose at the Preakness to Filly Swiss Skydiver by inches.
“I don’t think about the records,” Baffert said Saturday after Media Spirit's upsetting win. “I just want to be back with a horse that’s competitive. There’s other races, but the Kentucky Derby is the race.”
In spite of a pandemic, some 52,000 Derby fans were on hand at Churchill Downs on Saturday, the largest turnout of any major sports event in America since the pandemic hit the country with a vengeance in March of 2020. But the attendance was down from 150,000 in 2019, 2020's event done virtually with no fans permitted in the stands or on Churchill Downs grounds whatsoever.
Last year's race drew protesters outside of Churchill Downs too, and was postponed from the traditional first Saturday in May to Labor Day due to the coronavirus. The annual event, traditionally the nation's biggest horse race, was streamlined and televised from Louisville.
The city continues to face national backlash from the March 13 Louisville Metro police killing of 26-year-old Taylor a year-ago, Taylor unarmed and Black, and shot eight times in her apartment after police barged in via a no knock warrant and got in a shootout with Taylor's live-in boyfriend. No drugs were found on the premises
Around 50 protesters marched by the entrance of Churchill Downs on Saturday with signs that read, "We haven't forgotten Breonna."
The protesters ended up at a Black Lives Matter march and at La Chasse restaurant where a confrontation with a man who allegedly pulled out a gun occurred, police said.
It is unclear why the protesters at the Black Lives Matter march, two women and two men, and all of them Black, were arrested and taken into custody.
Taylor's shooting death, which drew some police reforms and a $12 million wrongful death settlement by the city, triggered local and countrywide protests, and riots, Taylor among a host of unarmed Blacks erroneously killed by White cops nationwide.
Only one of the three White Louisville Metro police officer directly involved in Taylor's death, fired detective Brett Hankison, was criminally charged. A grand jury indicted him on Sept. 23 on three counts of wanton endangerment for allegedly firing errant bullets into Taylor's apartment that penetrated a wall and entered an occupied apartment next door to Taylor's residence
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