The track has changed a lot in the last 91 years, but she said it’s still a beautiful sight. The 152nd Kentucky Derby will take place there on Saturday.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — In pictures from the Associated Press, you can find the 1935 winner of the Kentucky Derby, Omaha, adorned with flowers. He went on to become the third Triple Crown winner.
Among the thousands who witnessed his victory was a high school senior named Norma Miller, now Norma Betts.
“I remember catching the streetcar from downtown,” said Betts, who lived in Jeffersonville, Ind., a city across the Ohio River from Louisville. At the time, Franklin Roosevelt was in his first term as president and the mint julep had not yet become the official drink of the Kentucky Derby.
“Have you ever interviewed someone this old?” Betts asked WHAS11, a TV station in her native Indiana. “Well, now you have.”
The 1935 Derby was the first one Betts attended. She was in the infield for the race and said she was invited as a guest.
“And I was glad I didn’t have to pay because it was expensive,” she said.
Goodlett said the view from the infield to the track was much clearer in 1935.
“I think it’s important to remember that the track would have looked much different,” said Goodlett. “The turf track wasn’t there in 1935. So consequently, without that turf track and that built environment, you can get much closer to the race track than you can now, especially on the infield side.”
Ninety years after attending the Derby, Betts and her family visited the Kentucky Derby Museum in 2025 for the first time. When she arrived back in Kentucky to visit her daughter, she said she could not wait to see Churchill Downs again.
The track has changed a lot in the last 91 years, but she said it’s still a beautiful sight. The 152nd Kentucky Derby will take place there on Saturday.
