Sovereignty’s win in Saturday’s Kentucky Derby averaged 17.7 million fans on NBC and Peacock, the largest audience for the Run for the Roses since 1989 and the biggest since NBC took over the rights in 2001.

As expected it was Citizen Bull and Neoequos who set the early pace at the front, but as they came around the final turn to the home stretch, the favorite Journalism and Sovereignty made their late charge to the front. In the end it was Sovereignty that had more speed to close and came across the finish line first ahead of Journalism and Baeza.

The legacies of the horses running the Kentucky Derby can be shaped or shattered by how they break from the gate. It all starts with him.