The Kentucky Derby’s ‘Run for the Roses’ origin story

The Kentucky Derby has been run since 1875, but the “Run for the Roses” part? That didn’t start until a few years later and in true Derby fashion; it began with a party when a New York City socialite decided the party needed some flowers for the ladies.  

In 1883, Evander Berry Wall showed up to a post-Derby gathering and handed red roses to all the ladies present.  

Wall was a well-known New York socialite, who would show up everywhere, and everyone knew him, and he knew everyone. He probably wasn’t thinking about the actual race, but his gesture of giving a red rose to every woman at the party caught the eye of Churchill Downs founder Col. Meriwether Lewis Clark.  

By 1884, Clark had declared the rose the official flower of the Kentucky Derby, according to Churchill Downs’ official history. But it still took a few years before that was officially reflected in the Winner’s Circle.  

The first recorded account of a Derby winner receiving the collar of roses was in 1896. Ben Brush was awarded a collar of pink and white roses that year, according to the Kentucky Derby media guide.  

Then a sportswriter got involved and it became history.  

Bill Corum, a World War I veteran and Purple Heart honoree, was covering the Derby for a New York newspaper by the mid-1920s, picked up on the rose theme. In May 1925, he watched the roses fill the Churchill Downs winner’s circle and wrote what became one of the most durable phrases in American sports: “Run for the Roses.” 

It stuck. And so did Corum.  

He kept calling it the Run for the Roses in his columns and when calling the Derby on the radio. In 1950, he actually became the president of Churchill Downs, succeeding his friend Col. Matt Winn.  

Remarkably, Corum never mentioned the phrase in his autobiography.  

The garland that is now draped over the winner, didn’t take its modern form until 1932, according to Churchill Downs. A Louisville florist named Grace Walker was commissioned to create something permanent for the 1932 race. She stitched more than 500 dark red roses onto a green satin cloth-backed blanket and draped all 40 pounds of it over that year’s winner, Burgoo King.  

Walker’s shop, Kingsley Walker Florist, became the keepers of the garland for more than 50 years. She took care to measure horses so that no thorn, stem or wire frame would poke a horse during the celebration. The most she charged Churchill Downs for her creations was for $3,600 for flowers, labor, delivery and vases for the winner’s circle.  

And then Kroger picked up the tradition in 1987.  

Today, those roses are still hand stitched onto a green satin backing. It now bears the seal of the Commonwealth of Kentucky on one end, and the famous Twin Spires of Churchill Downs on the other. Each stem has a hidden water vial to keep the roses fresh.  

Now, it’s part of the ceremony.  

Every first Saturday in May, the garland travels to Churchill Downs via police escort. It arrives at 10 a.m. local time and sits on public display before post time and is then draped over the winner in a tradition that has become synonymous with the Kentucky Derby.