The Kentucky Derby’s most idiosyncratic fan makes 80th consecutive race

Louisville, Ky. — An 88-year-old man with vital signs recently had some nasty things happen. He spent just over four months in hospital rooms and on rehab floors in quiet agony and visible decline. Suddenly, the blood pressure monitor, so angry that it had been snoring enough to thwart Bob Weigh’s pressure rehab efforts (and many others), chirped with a new reading. It declared an impossible, impeccable 120/80.

“It was weird,” said Barbara Wiehe, his wife of 68 years, three months and one week. He felt it had “something to do with going home” in mid-April for the first time since Christmas morning. Then he agreed with his son across the family room on Friday night that it clearly had something to do with something else. Bob Weihe came to the 1947 Kentucky Derby with his mother at the age of 9, and she suggested that he crawl through the four-deep crowd knees and ankles to the rail to see the unintelligible blur of horses, he attended every Derby. That means that if he can somehow get one on Saturday, his streak could reach a staggering 80, in a world where the phrase “80 in a row” is rare to hear.

No, he didn’t miss 1954, when he and his teenage friends stood outside confused until they found a friendly drain pipe they could scale. He certainly didn’t miss in 1963, when he drove his Coca-Cola truck around southern Indiana advising ignored Chateaugays who wanted Derby tips, then returned to southern Indiana the following week distributing the winnings to anyone who would listen. He didn’t miss the time during Barbara’s surgery — “I wouldn’t want her to miss the Derby for anything,” he said in 2020 — so he took his 90-year-old mother with him when Barbara had the Derby afternoon off and briefly lacked a ride home, a story that demonstrates his elusive good humor. Even in 2020 he didn’t miss the empty, haunted, fan-less Derby on September 5 during the COVID-19 restrictions, when an owner of the horse Max Player learned his streak could end at 73 straight, kindly took Bob to their owner’s party.

“Derby Bob,” as the name has become, has patronized the Derby through many bad weather days: the heartless cold of 1957, the brutal heat of 2008, the shameless rain of the late 2010s. He and his fellow Louisville native Barbara have come up in various time-lapse fashions, beginning in 1957 when Bob and his first-grade best friend entered Churchill Downs, went to the second floor, placed their tickets in the rosary case and floated them to their future wives for second use. “A lot of times we’d fit in a box,” says Barbara, “and people would come, and nobody would move.” It ran until the cold, rainy season of 2025, when son Mark said, “I guarantee he was frustrated. But he sat there all day.” It turned out to be a 79, and he dreamed aloud from time to time about a nice, round 80. But then came Christmas morning 2025 when he couldn’t get out of bed, and then four months of infections and setbacks that signaled the end of the streak.

“I didn’t know what was going on,” Bob Wiehe said. “I was completely out of it. Once I knew what was going on, I thought, well, now I can convince myself that I can get better. I convinced myself (in February) that I could go to the Derby. They said I had to eat to go to the Derby. So I tried to eat, but I couldn’t. None of the food tasted good. Everything tasted good.” “I don’t know what will work,” he thought.

“Even in rehab, his oxygen would dip and they’d call everyone in,” says Barbara. Scott says, “And they actually called hospice, one time. He was out of his head. He’d look at you without really seeing you.” And, again Scott: “When I was there the doctors told him, ‘You’re going to die’.” Finally in April, Bob said, “I want to go home,” and Mark remembers him saying, “‘I want you to understand that if you go home and you get sick, they’re going to let you die.’ And he said, ‘I’m 88 years old. If it’s my time, it’s my time.’

By May 1, Bob spoke in a choked voice that he had to fight to summon, in the hospital bed that sits on one side of the family home where he grew up, the house he and Barbara have shared since 1975 (his second turn at it), a house six miles from Churchill Downs. It’s a house a few doors down from where daughter Becky lives, and it’s where Bob and Barbara and sons Mark and Scott watched the Kentucky Oaks on the eve of the Derby, Bob’s eyes on the screen during a post-race interview with winning jockey Jose Ortiz. It’s a home filled with scrapbooks and memorabilia from a man so passionate about collecting autographs from the Derby — winning jockeys and trainers in the Derby program that sometimes on road trips, like when Bob coached St. Francis of Assisi High football for 24 years, he and Barbara might stop and knock on doors.

“Can I lie down and sleep?” He jokes as he lays down on Friday night, because Saturday is already bursting with promise. The blood pressure monitor spoke and some hero intervened and Bob Weihe (pronounced Ken) appeared to be heading for the 80th Derby. CBS reporter David Begnaud made a video plea to help Wies find the forever overpriced ticket. Churchill Downs helped. Bob’s determination won out. Concerns then spread, from finding a wheelchair (which the hospice provided) to an accessible van (for which Mark’s colleagues at a local bar called around to try to help). Where can they park? How could they break into Churchill’s heavily fortified fortress? What about Bob’s oxygen?

Come Saturday morning, Barbara says, “At first he was a little hungry and then when he really woke up, I asked him if he was ready to go to the Derby and he said, ‘Yes!'” — as if Barbara didn’t have to ask.

What follows sends the family into a state of blissful disbelief. Dhara lives again. Hospice arrives and dresses Bob, including his new hat that says “Derby Bob’s 80th”. At mid-afternoon a van arrives but — oh — a police escort. Dhara lives again. CBS arrives. A Churchill Downs ambassador Greg Cobb arrives. Becky, grandchildren, significant others and great-grandchildren leave. Bob, like almost all Derby regulars, rarely picks a winner, giving his choice to a cop who asked for advice: 1-19-22. The van platform accommodates him in a wheelchair. Dhara lives again. At about 4:15 p.m., with about 150,000 people in attendance inside Churchill Downs, a convoy began with two trooper cars in front, a tan van, a CBS car and a last trooper car. The van carries Bob, Barbara, Mark, Scott and eternal family friend Bill Tharp, a retired physical therapist who can help with any emergency, from across the street from childhood. Short journeys prove long on euphoria. Bob is surprised. “He said he couldn’t believe he got a police escort,” Mark said. Tharp says he noticed Bob, never crying, crying.

At exactly 4:30 p.m., they entered the main entrance near the statue of late 2006 Derby winner Barbaro. A few drops of rain have stopped. The view of the sky is closed. The brightly colored people didn’t stop taking photos with Barbaro. An airplane hovering overhead advertises auto parts Goodyear blimp circling around. As the van doors opened and the platform began to bring Bob to the ground, about 15 onlookers applauded his arrival, including a self-described caretaker who didn’t know him but had heard his story.

A fence opens and the team enters, the streak comes alive again with Tharp steering Bob. An elevator ride leads to an inflatable clubhouse overlooking the stretch. The Derby card has reached its 10th race (Derby 12th) and as Bob watches it run down the stretch, his head is spinning towards the end and he looks not so different from a kid crawling on knees and ankles in 1947. He sips water. He looks at a program Barbara has placed in front of him. “It feels amazing,” he says at one point.

“Man, I have to stop crying,” says Mark.

They take Bob back to Churchill Downs to meet the president. They took him into the betting window (for 1-19-22). The sky has become very blue with innocent clouds. Airplanes, mostly UPS, took off from nearby. people drink “He smiles a lot,” Scott says, “he’s very careful, very careful. He knows where he is and he’s happy he’s here… He was determined, so we’re determined. He was a bigger believer than we were.” Tharp kept him nearby and turned off the oxygen for hours while checking Bob’s oxygen saturation level, which came in at a robust 98.

Food and drink are present even if Bob does not participate. A bearded man in a cowboy hat pauses in amazement, and Barbara says, “We never dreamed he’d make it this year.” Scott has someone on FaceTime, seeing Bob. Mark gets himself a cigar. Derby, perhaps louder than 1947, played “The Final Countdown” by Guns N’ Roses, Avicii, Flo Rida, AC/DC, Europe. Bob is sometimes seen close to sleeping but not during the race. He asked to hold a traditional Derby glass. As “My Old Kentucky Home” plays as always, he and Barbara repeat their ritual of sipping mint juleps, as always.

“He tried,” Barbara says. “He didn’t quite get it down.”

The biggest race churned out guts as always, and the board wound up at 19-1-22, the numbers that Bob had chosen (if not in the same order) due to the three jockeys. In these recommendations in the trifecta box, a family member wins about $56,000, the tip-seeking cop probably $112,000.

As the 150,000 cheers die down and the crowd exits, Bob holds his head back and laughs for an unusually long time. While a novice might say he laughed more than 1-19-22, those in the know know he laughed watching the Kentucky Derby for the 80th consecutive year, it’s clear that from Jet Pilot (1947) as a kid on the rail to Golden Tempo (2026) as a man out of the hospital and over ra. “What a day,” Tharp says to everyone as he steps into the elevator, and as Bob is escorted through the 80th exit from the Kentucky Derby, they’re the usual dense crowd, a sea of ​​strangers that keeps parting, their kaleidoscopic costumes seeming like he’s walking through a crazy botanical garden.

The platform puts Bob in the van just before 7:30, after a three-hour stretch. An hour later, the family room is buzzing with about a dozen family members and their loved ones, including that grateful winner of $56,000. Bob sleeps and even lets out a brief snore. Scott walked over at one point and said, “What an experience.” Begnaud brought the program with new autographs from the winning jockey and trainer, and Bob said, “Amazing! Amazing!” “Look at him,” said Tharp, standing by the bed, for he was clearly looking better than he had been in recent days. Granddaughter Courtney Waddell, a nurse by profession who cares for Bob, said of the day, “It was more than we ever dreamed of.”

He intended to take his blood pressure at one point, but the monitor went to the fridge, after which the man who has been to 80 consecutive Kentucky Derbys said it didn’t matter. “I’m still alive,” he says in that labored voice, and, somewhere around that heart and that determination, maybe he’s as alive as ever.