Kentucky Derby 2021: Start time, horses, channel, how to watch and stream

The Kentucky Derby is officially back this year, returning to its traditional race day on the first Saturday in May after the COVID-19 pandemic pushed last year’s run back to September.

While the bourbon and mint juleps will be flowing again amid a sea of fancy hats, the coronavirus will still have an impact on the race. Attendance is capped at around 50,000 masked people, about 100,000 fewer than pre-pandemic times (though better than last year’s empty stands).

Essential Quality, coming in undefeated in five career starts, is the odds-on favorite to win. The 3-year-old colt will start from the No. 14 post. Just three other horses — Rock Your World (5-1), Known Agenda (6-1), and Hot Rod Charlie (9) — enter the race with odds of less than 10-1.

» READ MORE: Kentucky Derby picks, odds, and trivia

Sunday Night Football host and announcer Mike Tirico will handle hosting duties for the fifth straight year, while the race will be called by veteran announcer Larry Collmus (who still gets asked questions about his viral call of an obscure New Jersey race between two horses named Mywifenosevrything and Thewifedoesntknow.).

Also joining the broadcast is MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki. Following his popular run touting NFL playoff odds on Sunday Night Football, NBC will have Kornacki tracking how the odds change during the day and which horses may be getting support in the run-up to the race.

“I’ve never actually been to the Derby in person before. So I’ve only known this event as a television viewer,” Kornacki said. “Really curious to see where the money starts to move, who the public kind of gets behind here.”

Here’s everything you need to know to watch or stream the 2020 Kentucky Derby:

NBC’s live coverage will begin at 2:30 p.m. Eastern, hosted by Tirico. The race will post at 6:57 p.m., and will stream on the NBC Sports App and NBCSports.com. Early coverage will begin at noon on NBC Sports Network.

Tirico also will be joined by analysts Randy Moss and Jerry Bailey, longtime handicapper Eddie Olczyk, and a host of reporters, including Jac Collinsworth — the son of Sunday Night Football analyst Cris Collinsworth.

Collmus said he’s not worried about calling the race with a crowd after a year of empty stands due to the pandemic, which he said kept his heart rate down and helped him see the races more clearly.

“This year’s sound won’t be quite like the ones from 2019 and the years before that because we won’t have the full house,” Collmus said. “I guess we’ll see what happens this year. But last year was definitely different, that’s for sure.”

The winner of last year’s coronavirus-delayed Kentucky Derby was Authentic, earning Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert his record-tying sixth Derby win.

This year, Baffert hopes to break the record with Medina Spirit (15-1), teaming up with last year’s winning jockey John Velazquez. But Baffert already tried to lower expectations in interviews with reporters ahead of the race, claiming Medina Spirit was “a cut below” the top horses.

“Every trainer, every owner, they’re going to go to bed the night before thinking they have a chance to win the Derby,” Baffert said, according to the Louisville Courier Journal.

After the pandemic forced a reshuffling of the normal Triple Crown order in 2020 for the first time in 90 years, the three big races — Kentucky Derby, Preakness, Belmont — are back this year in their traditional sequence and normal spots on the calendar.

This year’s Triple Crown schedule is: