150th Kentucky Derby and Oaks Horses Workout At 2024 Dawn At The Downs | Churchill Downs

After a little hiatus, I am back and we are checking out the 2024 Dawn at the Downs event at Churchill Downs in Louisville, KY which lets fans watch the morning workouts of the Kentucky Derby and Kentucky Oaks horses. This year also coincides with the 150th anniversary of both the Kentucky Derby and Kentucky Oaks races which is a huge milestone. This year's races kept in that spirit with Kenny McPeek becoming the 4th trainer to win the Oaks/Derby Double which occurs when their horses wins both the Oaks and the Derby in the same year. Brian Hernandez Jr. was the jockey on both horses making him the 8th jockey to achieve the feat.
Dawn at the Downs occurs every morning for about a week before the Derby runs. This year it ran from Thursday of the previous week until Wed of the week of Derby. I filmed on the last day on Wed. What is cool is it is a free event where you just show up for the gates to open at 7am and you can watch the morning workouts to 10:30am. However, the Derby and Oaks horses only workout from 7:30-7:45am generally speaking. And of course, there is no guarantee that you will get to see all the horses running in the races due to the horses' schedules. We were able to see 14 horses from each race respectively which is a good percentage of the field for both races.
We also do a short tour of the clubhouse area of Churchill Downs with a look at the brand new 200-million-dollar paddock. In my video last year, you saw the spot of the paddock with a temporary solution in place.
And for those that like photography, I show you my favorite photos I took of every horse I saw at the event.
Enjoy the video!
00:00 Intro
03:18 Derby & Oaks Horses
12:16 Other Horses
14:37 Brief Clubhouse Tour
18:43 My Photos
22:00 Outro
Filmed on 05-01-24
All music is supplied by Epidemic Sound (www.epidemicsound.com).
#vlog #churchilldowns #kentuckyderby #kentuckyoaks #kentuckyproud #horseracing #horse

[@magn630]

Wow - I would NEVER be able to do this, so Thank You so much for sharing this with us. I've attended horse races in a few places, but NEVER in the Kentucky Derby track. Your special early morning behind the scenes shots are what us regular folks would not be able to see, so thanks again. I loved your photos at the end and did not pick the winners from your great shots, but still thankful you shared with us. My pics were Into Champagne for Oaks and West Saratoga for Derby. Really can't thank you enough for sharing your experiences with us who can't get to those places.

[@CWooSomewhere]

Thank you for the kind words :-)