Kentucky Derby Start Time 2018: TV Schedule and Post Time for Churchill Downs

The last five editions of the Kentucky Derby have been won by the favourite. 

Always Dreaming prevailed last year to maintain a run started by Orb in 2013 and continued by California Chrome, American Pharoah and Nyquist.

The 144th edition of the Run for the Roses will take place on Saturday at Churchill Downs in Louisville, and Justify will be looking to emulate his predecessors by turning favouritism into Kentucky Derby glory.

Here are all the details for one of the most anticipated days in the American sporting calendar.

Date: Saturday, May 5

Post Time: 6:34 p.m. ET (race starts at 6:46 p.m.)

TV Info: NBC (coverage begins at 2:30 p.m ET)

Live Stream: NBC Sports, At The Races

Justify is unbeaten in three career starts and goes into Saturday's marquee race on the back of a victory on April 7 at the Santa Anita Derby.

But the Bob Baffert-trained colt is looking to end a century-old curse.

Justify did not race as a juvenile, and Apollo in 1882 was the last and only horse to win the Kentucky Derby without competing as a two-year-old.

Eclipse Sportswire/Getty Images

That is quite the run of disappointment, but the Apollo Curse could lift this year.

As Vance Hanson of Brisnet.com noted on the Kentucky Derby's official website, Justify is not the only well-fancied horse that could finally buck the trend, as Todd Pletcher's undefeated Magnum Moon also didn't race as a two-year-old.

Two-time Derby winner Pletcher believes it is simply a matter of time until someone breaks the curse:

Justify surely has the best chance this year of ending the disappointment despite his relative inexperience.

However, it is far from a foregone conclusion. 

As ever, the Kentucky Derby field is strong, and there have been plenty of good horses over the years to miss out on victory, per Marcus Hersh of Daily Racing Form:

The first leg of the Triple Crown goes by in a two-minute flash over 10 furlongs, but there is still time for things to go wrong.

The bookies have done an excellent job in recent years of picking the winner, and Justify will rightly be favored going into Saturday. 

But he will still need to run a perfect race if he is to cross the line first and end 135 years of hurt.