Fact Checking Kentucky Derby Quotes

Viral Facebook posts claim that the jockey who won the Kentucky Derby on Saturday turned down an invitation to the White House and called President Joe Biden “a horse’s ass.”

Rather than coming from Sonny Leon, the winning jockey, this is a recycled joke that has made the rounds following the Kentucky Derby the past few years. It circulated in 2018, about then-President Donald Trump, and was also used to mock Biden in 2021. In other versions, it was repurposed to be about an invitation to Mar-a-Lago rather than the White House.

There is no record of Leon uttering these words in an interview or through his social media accounts. 

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