The Pegasus Parade is one of the oldest events during the Kentucky Derby Festival. The mythical winged horse is the official mascot of the festival and the parade. In fact many people ooh and aww over the inflatable Pegasus as it rolls down Broadway
For as long as I remember, the parade has been held, rain or shine reliably on the Thursday before the Kentucky Derby. Tens of thousands line the long street cutting through Louisville several blocks south of the City Center. This year things were different. It was held on Sunday.
What a genius move.
Thursday is a work day; many people work in the rejuvenated downtown Louisville area. The Parade route is long, disrupting many North-South routes feeding out of town. Since Parades are very kid-friendly, parents must take the day off, collect the kids from school and make their way downtown. This makes it a challenge to get to.
Also, with the popularity of the two-day race packages that include Friday’s Kentucky Oaks, and Saturday’s Kentucky Derby for out-of-town visitors, Churchill Downs has been promoting a “Locals” day at the track, which is called Thurby which is held on Thursday. For a long time, the Kentucky Derby was the day for out-of-town guests. Now with the two-day packages, locals can rarely get to the Oaks and Thurby has turned into a day almost as big. With Thurby taking away spectators, moving the parade to Sunday when there really isn’t another premiere event made a lot of sense.
This year in Louisville, and frankly in all of the racing community, is a special time. It’s the 50th anniversary of Secretariat’s Triple Crown win in 1973. Secretariat was a very special horse. He still holds the track and Derby record in the mile-and-a-quarter distance of 1:59 and 2/5ths of a second. No horse since has been faster. Only one other horse has broken the two-minute mark. Not only is this record impressive, but Secretariat also got faster each 8th of a mile, another impressive feat. But most will remember his 31-length victory in the mile-and-a-half Belmont Stakes where his record 2:24 still stands for the longer race, and the fact that most horses had just rounded the last turn.
So 50 years is a big anniversary. To honor Secretariat, he was named the Grand Marshal of the parade, with an incredible 3,000-pound bronze statue of him running with his jockey Ron Turcott aboard. It put the “awe” in “awesome”.
Another big change came with the Pegasus inflatable this year. A new balloon that used regular air instead of the hard-to-find helium allowed the inflatable to participate in the parade regardless of higher winds that would have grounded a lighter-than-air balloon. The fans love them just the same.
The rest of the parade had the expected dignitaries, bands from colleges to high schools, dance teams, floats, beauty queens, clowns, and more. A pretty good rain shower dropped on downtown Louisville about halfway into the parade, but it continued.
Hopefully, with the parade now on Sundays, it will grow to be the spectacle that it once was.