Overview
- Tina Knowles says a staffer at the 2024 Kentucky Derby let a white couple cut ahead of her on the red carpet after announcing she was next.
- She describes the atmosphere as “racially charged” and characterizes the red-carpet culture she encountered as closed off.
- Her remarks are featured in episode three of High Horse: The Black Cowboy, now streaming on Peacock and executive-produced by Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions.
- Outlets reporting on the episode say representatives for the Kentucky Derby did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
- The documentary situates her account within horse racing’s racial history, noting early Black Derby winners like Oliver Lewis and the later Jim Crow–era exclusion, and it includes Knowles defending Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter by citing pioneers such as Linda Martell.