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How to Watch at the 2023 Kentucky Derby With Sling TV

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The Kentucky Derby is probably the biggest horse race in the United States — the start of the Triple Crown. And you won’t want to miss this year’s event, presented by Woodford Reserve, coming Saturday, May 4, 2024. Read on to learn all you need to know!

In a hurry? You can watch the race itself over-the-air with NBC. The cheapest live TV streaming service offering NBC is Sling Blue for just $40.00/mo. Get it now with a 50% discount!

The Kentucky Derby is the first race of the Triple Crown — followed by the Preakness Stakes (Sling TV Guide) at Pimlico and the Belmont Stakes (Sling TV Guide) at Belmont Park. It’s held annually at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky. Last year, racing fans were shocked when the late-entry long shot (80-1!) Rich Strike won the race. This year’s race was won by Mage (15-1).

The race will celebrate its 150th anniversary next year. It’s the longest-held sporting event in the United States. So come Derby Day, there’s a lot of history, a lot of hats, not a few mint juleps, and the best thoroughbred racing in the world.

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Kentucky Derby on TV

NBC Sports owns the broadcasting rights to the Kentucky Derby. In past years, it has shared the event with different channels (eg, USA Network). But this year, it will all be broadcast on NBC itself.

  • Saturday, May 4th (NBC)

Depending on where you live, you should be able to watch for free with a digital antenna.

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Stream the Kentucky Derby With Sling TV

NBC is a network. That means that you watch it via affiliates that are located near you. This is good in that it allows you to get a lot of local and national content. It’s bad in that you may not live near an NBC affiliate.

The same goes for streaming. Sling TV offer NBC in select markets. If you live in one of them, you are set. Here are the areas where Sling offers NBC:

  • Boston (WBTS)
  • Chicago (WMAQ)
  • Dallas/Fort Worth (KXAS)
  • Miami/Fort Lauderdale (WTVJ)
  • Hartford/New Haven (WVIT)
  • Los Angeles (KNBC)
  • New York (WNBC)
  • Philadelphia (WCAU)
  • San Diego (KNSD)
  • San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose (KNTV)
  • Washington, DC (WRC)

If you don’t live in one of these locations, you can probably use an antenna. And Sling will even provide a free one and more if you sign up to 2-3 months of service. Get all the details in our Sling TV Local Channel Guide.

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Sling Blue

The Sling Blue plan costs $40.00/mo (half off the first month) and comes with local affiliates of ABC, Fox, and NBC. (Note that if you get ABC, the price is $5/mo more).

It comes with a total of 40+ channels including a great selection of “cable” channels: A&E, AMC, BBC America, BET, Bravo, CNN, Cartoon Network, Comedy Central, Discovery Channel, Food Network, FS1, FX, Fox News, HGTV, History Channel, IFC, Lifetime, Local Now, MSNBC, National Geographic, NFL Network, Nick Jr, Syfy, truTV, TBS, TNT, and USA Network.

You can watch on up to three devices at the same time so different people can be watching different programs around the house. And those devices include pretty much everything in use including Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, Roku, smart TVs from Android TV, LG, Samsung, and Vizio, and gaming systems Xbox and Oculus.

And you get 50 hours of cloud DVR storage.

But the best thing about Sling TV is that it is more customizable than any other streaming, cable, or satellite system. It offers a half-dozen Extra add-on packages and dozens of individual channel add-ons as well as country- and language-specific packages.

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2023 Kentucky Derby

The 2023 Kentucky Derby is scheduled to run on Saturday, May 6th at .

Here are the qualifying horses (trainer, jockey) for the event. Three horses were scratched on May 4, causing three late additions.

  1. Hit Show — 30-1 (Brad Cox, Manny Franco)
  2. Verifying — 15-1 (Brad Cox, Tyler Gaffalione)
  3. Two Phil’s — 12-1 (Larry Rivelli, Jareth Loveberry)
  4. Confidence Game — 20-1 (Keith Desormeaux, James Graham)
  5. Tapit Trice — 5-1 (Todd Pletcher, Luis Saez)
  6. Kingsbarns (Todd Pletcher, Jose Ortiz)
  7. Reincarnate — 50-1 (Tim Yakteen, John Velazquez)
  8. Mage — 15-1 (Gustavo Delgado, Javier Castellano)
  9. Skinner — 20-1 (John Shirreffs, Juan Hernandez)
  10. Practical Move — Scratched (Tim Yakteen, Ramon Vazquez)
  11. Disarm — 30-1 (Steve Asmussen, Joel Rosario)
  12. Jace’s Road — 15-1 (Brad Cox, Florent Geroux)
  13. Sun Thunder — 50-1 (Kenny McPeek, Brian Hernandez Jr.)
  14. Angel of Empire — 8-1 (Brad Cox, Flavien Prat)
  15. Forte — 3-1 (Todd Pletcher, Irad Ortiz Jr.)
  16. Raise Cain — 50-1 (Ben Colebrook, Gerardo Corrales)
  17. Derma Sotogake — 10-1 (Hidetaka Otonashi, Christophe Lemaire)
  18. Rocket Can — 30-1 (Bill Mott, Junior Alvarado)
  19. Lord Miles — Scratched (Saffie Joseph Jr., Paco Lopez)
  20. Continuar — Scratched (Yoshito Yahagi, Ryusei Sakai)
  21. Cyclone Mischief — 49-1 (Dale Romans, Joel Rosario)
  22. Mandarin Hero — 36-1 (Terunobu Fujita, Kazushi Kimura)
  23. King Russell — 55-1 (Ron Moquett, Rafael Bejarano)

Wrapping Up

The Kentucky Derby is one of the most exciting events in all of sports. Cue up Stephen Foster’s “My Old Kentucky Home” — you can watch it without spending much with Sling TV. Get a month for half off now!

FAQ

What is the Kentucky Oaks?

Kentucky Oaks is the Kentucky Derby, but for fillies (female horses). The “Lilies for the Fillies” (the winner gets a garland of lilies, similar to the garland of roses the Derby winner gets) is held the day before the Kentucky Derby, also at Churchill Downs. At 1 1/8 mile it’s slightly shorter, and the horses carry slightly less weight. First post is at , and the actual Oaks is scheduled to run 12th in the 13 race series, at . The favorites to win are Wet Paint and Botanical, both trained by Brad Cox.

The Longines Kentucky Oaks is part of the larger two-week Kentucky Derby Festival, more specifically, Derby Week — see the FAQ on Thurby below.

What are the Twin Spires?

The two ends of the grandstand are graced with two ornamental towers, which have become iconic symbols themselves of Churchill Downs and the Kentucky Derby, and a Louisville landmark. So associated with horse racing are they, Churchill Downs Incorporated (CDI owns and runs the whole Kentucky Derby shindig) named its online betting platform, TwinSpires.com, after them.

What is Thurby?

A portmanteau of “Thursday before the Derby,” it used to be a largely unofficial local celebration — but now it has corporate sponsorship and is becoming a thing itself. This year it’s presented by Old Forester, and features lots of Kentucky bourbon (the sponsor is a giveaway), bluegrass music, and a series of horse races.

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Frank Moraes
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