The idea for the story began at a dinner party at the
Aspen, Colorado, home of novelist
James Salter.
Hunter S. Thompson queried ''
Scanlan's Monthly'' editor
Warren Hinckle, who approved the project and paired Thompson with illustrator
Ralph Steadman for the first time. 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
gonzo journalism. The article is less about the actual
Kentucky Derby – indeed, Thompson and Steadman could not actually see the race from their standpoint – than the revelry surrounding the event. Thompson's depiction includes the events in
Louisville, his hometown, 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 the 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. The narrative ends with Thompson and Steadman's realization that, by participating in the drunken pageantry of the event, they had become exactly what they had originally planned to caricature. Shortly after Thompson's suicide in 2005, Steadman recalled his first impression of Thompson at the Kentucky Derby to the British newspaper
The Independent: ==Release==