You think this year’s Kentucky Derby is four months late, but I believe the 2020 Derby was run a whole year early. Think about it: The 2019 edition of the world’s greatest event was a catastrophe—a holy horsey debacle.

Derby 145 was a wet one, with rain soaking the Churchill Downs track and crowd, as well as hundreds of backyard parties like mine across the state. We had all seen damp Derbies before, but no one had ever seen an outcome like this one. The betting favorite was Improbable, a name that set the tone for the Derby itself.

Maximum Security ran his usual race and set the pace from the start. As the field converged on him at the turn for home, though, he veered sharply from his path, which was two horse widths from the rail, into the four or five path. He made contact with War of Will, who was mounting a move that made his jockey say later, “I really thought I was going to win the Derby.”   

Me, too, as I had put Will in the top spot of many exacta and trifecta bets.

Instead, the bump from Maximum Security forced a domino of jostles, with several horses losing momentum. Max forged on, though, crossing under the wire in first place.

But the pilot aboard one of the jostled horses called foul and filed an objection with the stewards. After a looooong review, the stewards, for the first time in Derby history, took down the winner because of a foul. The new winner of the Kentucky Derby, with 65-to-1 odds, was Country House. He paid $132.40 for a $2 win ticket; a $2 exacta, with runner-up Code of Honor, paid just over $3,000; and a $2 trifecta paid an unimaginable $22,950.

The 2019 Kentucky Derby—with its awful weather, controversial disqualification, and nutty payout—was over. It was also a year early.

2020 would have gladly welcomed last year’s fiasco into its cluster f*ck collection. Instead, Derby 146 will be run on a perfect day on an ideal track … to an empty infield and grandstand.

We’ll be watching from home, though. Here in 2020, things can always be worse. We’ll be watching to see if the 2019 Derby was time-warp glitch … or a portent of what’s to come.