LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The 149th Kentucky Derby is just days away, and all across Louisville the community is getting fired up for the fastest two minutes in sports.
It may have been Thurby at Churchill Downs, but at Collegiate Elementary School, it was time for an age-old tradition: the Kindergarten Derby.
The school's youngest students bear the names of actual Derby contenders while racing around the yard on decorated stick horses -- jockey silks -- while their parents and older students cheer them on.
The tradition has been happening for more than six decades and school leaders say it's something graduates remember long after they leave Collegiate.
"I was meeting an alum for the first time in Chicago and the first thing that alum did was get their camera out and show me that they were in the Kindergarten Derby like 13 years ago, and they won it! Like, I don't know where you go after you win the Kindergarten Derby," Collegiate Head of Schools Dr. Robert Macray said. "Like, does life get any better?"
And turns out, the Kindergarten Derby winner does match up with the Kentucky Derby winner.
American Pharaoh won both races back in 2015.
This year's Kindergarten Derby winner ran as "Forte", and Max Smith took home the blanket of roses.
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