The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved

"The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" is a seminal sports article written by Hunter S. Thompson on the 1970 Kentucky Derby in Louisville, Kentucky, first appearing in an issue of Scanlan's Monthly in June of that year. Though not known at the time, the article marked the first appearance of gonzo journalism, the style that Thompson came to epitomize through the 1970s.

The genesis of the article has been described by Thompson as akin to "falling down an elevator shaft and landing in a pool of mermaids." Faced with a deadline and without any coherent story for his editors, Thompson began tearing pages from his notebook, numbering them, and sending them to the magazine. Accompanied by Ralph Steadman's sketches, (the first of many collaborations between Thompson and Steadman), the resulting story, and the manic, first-person subjectivity that characterized it, were the beginnings of the Gonzo style of journalism.

The article is less about the actual race itself – indeed, Thompson and Steadman could not actually see the race from their standpoint – but rather focuses on the celebration and that surrounds the event. Thompson's depiction includes the events in Louisville (his home town) in the days before and after the Derby, and Steadman captured the debauched atmosphere in his surreal drawings. Thompson provided up-close views of activities in the Derby infield and grandstand at Churchill Downs, and a running commentary on the drunkenness and lewdness of the crowd, which he states in the article as the only thing he was focusing on with the work. The narrative ends with a bittersweet anagnorisis, somewhat common in Thompson's work; after several days of immersing themselves in raucous partying and alcoholism to get a sense of the event, Thompson and Steadman realize that they have become exactly the type of people they originally planned to caricature.

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