An English idea, a family’s land and a grandstand with two towers.

The Derby was modelled on a race across the Atlantic. HISTORY.com, in an article published in March 2018, says the race was started by Meriwether Lewis Clark Jr., grandson of the explorer William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. In 1872 Clark travelled to Europe and visited racing sites in England and France, and he was inspired by Epsom Downs, home since 1780 of the Derby Stakes, a race for three-year-olds organised by the 12th Earl of Derby and his friends. ESPN’s guide to Derby traditions, published in May 2001, gives the same account: Colonel Lewis Clark visited England in 1872 and decided to model a Kentucky race on the Epsom Derby. English Wikipedia adds that he went on to Paris, where a jockey club had organised the Grand Prix de Paris at Longchamp.

Back in Kentucky, Clark built an organisation and a track. HISTORY.com says he founded the Louisville Jockey Club and raised money to build a racetrack on land given by his uncles, John and Henry Churchill. Clark, it says, was known for extravagant parties and pictured the track as a place where the city’s stylish residents would gather. The Derby was inaugurated on 17 May 1875; the winning colt, Aristides, was ridden by Oliver Lewis, an African American jockey. Wikipedia says the grounds were known initially as the Louisville Jockey Club track, that people began calling them Churchill Downs some years later after the family who provided the land, and that the name became official in 1937.

The building that gives the track its outline came two decades in. ESPN’s 2001 guide says construction of a new grandstand and its Twin Spires began in the early autumn of 1894 and continued until winter weather stopped work. The spires, which have been called towers, cupolas and even steeples over the years, stand on top of the 1895 grandstand, which became the core of a much larger complex stretching from the top of the homestretch to the clubhouse turn. They have since become the shorthand for the place: ESPN notes that the annual Derby painting often shows them, and they appear on the winner’s garland.

Management changed in the new century. HISTORY.com says a new team took over Churchill Downs in 1902, including Martin “Matt” Winn, a Louisville-born promoter who later used the honorary title “colonel.” In 1908 Winn introduced French pari-mutuel betting machines in place of bookmakers, and he began inviting celebrities to the race and pressed for it to be broadcast on radio, which happened on a national network in 1925. Today the race belongs to Churchill Downs Incorporated, the Louisville company that owns the track; Wikipedia says that in August 2026 the company and the New York Racing Association announced a series for three-year-olds, beginning in 2027, with the Derby as its opening race.

From a bouquet at a party to a blanket sewn overnight.

The roses began off the track. America’s Best Racing, a racing fan site, wrote in 2018 that roses were given to the women at a fashionable Louisville Derby party in 1883, and that Churchill Downs president Clark then made the association official for the 1884 running. Wikipedia names the host of that party as the New York socialite E. Berry Wall and says Clark attended. HISTORY.com says that in 1884 Clark started the practice of giving the winning jockey a bouquet of roses.

The flowers moved from rider to horse over the next decades. America’s Best Racing says Ben Brush, winner in 1896, was presented with an arrangement of white and pink roses, that the red rose became the official flower of the Derby in 1904, and that Churchill Downs has photographs of a winner wearing a rose garland from 1906. ESPN’s 2001 guide notes that the winner’s arrangement has been called a wreath, a blanket and a garland since the earliest presentations in the 1890s.

The phrase came from the press box. ESPN, HISTORY.com and America’s Best Racing all credit Bill Corum, a New York sports columnist, with calling the race the “Run for the Roses” in 1925; ESPN adds that Corum later served as president of Churchill Downs from 1950 to 1958. America’s Best Racing dates the garland in its present design to 1932, when it was placed on that year’s winner, Burgoo King, and HISTORY.com says it has been customary since the early 1930s to lay a large garland of roses over the winning horse.

The garland has a fixed composition. ESPN described it in 2001 as the darkest red roses and greenery stitched onto a cloth-backed blanket. America’s Best Racing says it carries the seal of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, the Twin Spires and the renewal number of that year’s Derby, and that a separate “crown” of roses, green fern and ribbon is made to symbolise the heart and struggle needed to win. Since 1987 the official florist has been the grocery chain Kroger, which makes the garland on Derby eve in a local store where the public can watch. Since 1996, the site says, the garland has been sent to Danville, Kentucky, to be freeze-dried for the winning owner. Wikipedia says the Governor of Kentucky and the chairman of Churchill Downs Incorporated present the garland and the trophy together.

The trophy has its own symbolism. ESPN reported in 2001 that a new trophy unveiled the previous year turned the horseshoe upside down, so that, in the words of the tradition, the luck would not run out, with a bed of roses picked out in rubies inside it.

Roses, spires and a hat brim.

A sporting event is an unusual kind of brand. It has no product on a shelf and often no single owner of the kind a company has; instead it is held together by a name, a date on the calendar and a set of objects and rituals that recur each time it is staged.

Trophies frequently become the mark itself. A cup, a figure or a plate is drawn, simplified and printed on tickets, broadcasts and merchandise, so that the object handed to the winner also works as the event’s signature. Host venues do similar work: a clubhouse, a finish line, a grandstand or a stretch of road is photographed so often that its outline turns into shorthand for the whole occasion.

Traditions add another layer. A jacket, a garland, a particular flower, a colour worn on the day or a song sung before the start can be as recognisable as any wordmark, and organisers tend to protect them carefully. Finally, sponsor naming sits alongside all of this. Presenting partners, official suppliers and naming rights put commercial marks next to the event’s own, and the way an organiser balances or limits them is itself a design decision worth studying.

A cup, a song, a hat and a sponsor’s name.

The drink is part of the identity. HISTORY.com describes the mint julep, made with bourbon, sugar, mint and crushed ice, as a Derby tradition for nearly a century, and ESPN’s 2001 guide said the same of its place at Churchill Downs, with a recipe built on Kentucky whiskey poured over finely crushed ice in a chilled julep cup. Wikipedia says the drink is traditionally served in an ice-frosted silver julep cup, while patrons generally drink from souvenir glasses, offered since 1939 and redesigned every year, printed with the names of past winners.

Clothes have been part of the event from the start. HISTORY.com says Clark wanted to improve the image of American racetracks and attract an upscale crowd, and that in the 1960s, encouraged partly by television cameras, both men and women began wearing elaborate hats on race day. ESPN noted in 2001 that the hats are about the show: there is no formal contest. When the horses parade onto the track, HISTORY.com says, the crowd sings Stephen Foster’s nineteenth-century ballad “My Old Kentucky Home.” The same article observes that the julep and the song tie the race to a romanticised version of the Old South.

Art and logos change every year. ESPN’s 2001 guide says Churchill Downs selects an artist each year to paint an interpretation of the race, often showing the Twin Spires or horses rounding a turn, and that the image is sold as a print series and reproduced on shirts and souvenirs. Wikipedia says Norman Adams has designed the Kentucky Derby logo since 2002.

Sponsorship entered the name in this century. Wikipedia says the Louisville-based fast-food company Yum! Brands announced on 1 February 2006 a deal to call the race “The Kentucky Derby presented by Yum! Brands,” and that in 2018 Woodford Reserve replaced Yum! as presenting sponsor; the Swiss watchmaker Longines is the official timekeeper. In 2004, after a court order, jockeys were allowed to wear corporate logos on their clothing.

For a design guide, the Kentucky Derby shows how a building, a flower and a drink can carry an event identity alongside a logo that changes every spring. Compare Woodford Reserve, the Kentucky bourbon that has presented the race since 2018, and the Boston Marathon, another American sporting event with nineteenth-century roots. For this guide we use garland red, satin green and spire white with a high-contrast serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Kentucky Derby’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.