Turtle Races: Get Ready for the Slowest Two Minutes in Sports

Courtesy of Old Forester

The slowest two minutes in sports – The Kentucky Turtle Derby – returns this year on the first Saturday in May. This time, fans of the creeping reptiles can win cash on the race by guessing the winners, through a partnership with DraftKings.

The turtles will "race," with the action shown in more than 10,000 bars and restaurants nationwide (via Atmosphere TV). In addition, the race will be streamed on YouTube and on the Big Board at Churchill Downs – which is a TV the size of three NBA basketball courts – for more than 150,000 at the track for the 148th running of The Kentucky Derby. 

Starting today, April 25, and until the race at 4 p.m. on Saturday, May 7, fans nationwide can answer various questions about the turtles in the race. All those with correct answers will split a $5,000 pot. Visit DraftKings to play. The race is sponsored by Old Forester.

Eight turtles will make their way to the starting gate, with "Hiding in Plain Sight" the morning line favorite at 5-1. Longshots include "Out of the Bog" (50-1) and "Snappy and You Know It" ( 35-1).

Now in its third year, The Kentucky Turtle Derby was resurrected by Old Forester in 2020 when The Kentucky Derby was delayed due to the global pandemic. So, Old Forester decided to race turtles that year – and has every year since. That initial race harkened to another time when the Kentucky Derby faced a delay: In 1945, the famous horse race was postponed due to World War II – the only other time in history Derby ran on a date other than the first Saturday in May. 

Here’s how it happened: The federal government had suspended all horse racing nationwide for the first half of the year – money wagered could be money for war bonds, after all – but the war ended in May after Germany finally surrendered on the 8th of that month. Without the Derby, a few folks hungry for racing organized another contest to be run the first Saturday in May in lieu of the Kentucky Derby – a full card of turtle races.

Held in the Jefferson County Armory (later known as Louisville Gardens), some 6,500 people attended and the crowd bet nearly $12,000 across eight races, according to an article in The Courier-Journal at the time. Each race was 20 feet of track, and the well-attended event lasted right up to midnight.

The last race on the card, the turtle Derby, as it were, brought in a whopping $1,729, with a turtle named Broken Spring winning it all with a blazing time of 1:20.3. Perhaps the most entertaining contest, however, was race No. 4, according to news reports. A turtle named Journeyman Printer won that one while clocking a time of 4:59.1, and it was reported that seven different turtles held the lead in the “sprint” at one point, many of them eventually turning around and going back the way they came.

The turtle races became an annual event for a while, but fizzled out in the early 1950s.

Perhaps that first turtle derby was an inspiration for the KenDucky Derby, in which Kentucky Derby Festival officials dump 40,000 rubber ducks into the Ohio River. We’ll probably never know.