{"id":296787,"date":"2026-05-02T16:23:31","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T16:23:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/296787\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T16:23:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T16:23:31","slug":"what-time-does-2026-kentucky-derby-start-what-tv-channel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/296787\/","title":{"rendered":"What time does 2026 Kentucky Derby start? What TV channel?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

LOUISVILLE, Ky.\u00a0\u2014\u00a0It\u2019s Kentucky Derby Day<\/a>, also known as the day everyone waits around for eight hours to watch a two-minute horse race.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s part of what makes the Derby what it is \u2026 not just a race, but an event. And maybe 8 a.m. PDT is a little early to begin your neighborhood party, but we\u2019re not judging. Besides, if you\u2019re reading this in the Eastern Time Zone, 11 a.m. is prime brunch time.<\/p>\n

What you really want to know, though, is what time the horses actually will break from the gate at Churchill Downs. For the seventh straight year, the official post time is 6:57 p.m. EDT, though a timeline released Friday at the track said the horses would load into the gate at 7:01, with a start at 7:02.<\/p>\n

To spare you the math, that\u2019s 3:57 p.m. in Los Angeles and the rest of the Pacific Time Zone, with the race starting just after 4. (In the last six years, the race has gone off sometime between 3:59 and 4:05.)<\/p>\n

But you don\u2019t want to just tune into NBC at the top of the hour. There\u2019s the walkover of the horses from the stable area to the paddock beginning at about 3:15 PDT, the call for \u201cRiders Up\u201d (from retired jockey Pat Day) at 3:44, the \u201cCall to the Post\u201d at 3:45 and the University of Louisville choir singing \u201cMy Old Kentucky Home\u201d right after that.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re interested in any of the 11 races at Churchill Downs before the Derby, and there are some good ones, they begin at 8 a.m. PDT. The first two races are available on FanDuel TV<\/a> (yes, it\u2019s still in business) before Peacock<\/a> and NBCSN take over at 9 a.m. That\u2019s where the next four races, including two graded stakes, will be televised.<\/p>\n

Then, once NBC\u2019s coverage of the Premier League soccer game between Arsenal and Fulham ends at 11:30, the network will show the rest of the card, which features five stakes races leading up to the Derby.<\/p>\n

The Derby does not end NBC\u2019s sports day, however. After the trophy presentation, the network hopes much of its audience sticks around for Game 7 of the NBA Eastern Conference playoff series between the Philadelphia 76ers and Boston Celtics. Tipoff is scheduled for shortly after 4:30 p.m. PDT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOUISVILLE, Ky.\u00a0\u2014\u00a0It\u2019s Kentucky Derby Day, also known as the day everyone waits around for eight hours to watch…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296788,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[41837,125863,4419,11544,122964,125862,125860,48,52,51,47,50,49,63,2971,224,125861,9455,315,43998,978],"class_list":["post-296787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-boulder","tag-central-time-zone","tag-chicago","tag-denver","tag-derby","tag-horse-race","tag-kentucky-derby-start","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-nbc","tag-p-m","tag-p-m-edt-saturday","tag-peacock","tag-time","tag-tv-channel","tag-west"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}