May 5, 2011 - The Kentucky Derby's one of the best sporting events of the year, mainly because everyone gets to join in on the fun. Nobody knows anything about the horses, so it's impossible to take it too seriously or make a fool of yourself.
With other fringe sporting—say, the Stanley Cup, a big boxing match, or playoff baseball—it's hard to throw yourself into it, because you run the risk of getting scolded by a bunch of experts. With horse racing, if anyone tries to scold you for not knowing enough about the horses, you can fire back, "Whoa ho ho, Bob Baffert, sorry I didn't have enough time to study up." It's great.
Plus, half the fun of the derby is studying up on the horses last-minute, and pretending to know what's going on with this stuff. For instance, this year the field is unusually slow. It's part of a larger trend in horse racing, actually. Andrew Beyer, one of the few, true horse racing experts on earth, has more on this phenomenon at the Washington Post: