For 79 consecutive years, Bob Weihe had a standing appointment on the first Saturday in May: the Kentucky Derby. This year, at 89 years old and in hospice care, the Louisville native wasn’t sure that streak would continue.
His family knew what the day meant to him. So when it looked like his health might keep him from Churchill Downs entirely, CBS News contributor David Begnaud shared Weihe’s story online, hoping to help make one more Derby happen for a man who had missed almost none in his lifetime.
It worked. Churchill Downs granted Weihe’s wish, welcoming him as a VIP guest for the 152nd running of the race. Track president Mike Anderson personally greeted him, and Weihe was given a seat with an unobstructed view of the finish line, directly in front of the leaderboard — no small detail for a fan whose entire life had been built around watching that exact finish.
Weihe, confined to a wheelchair for the trip, had picked his horses ahead of time: numbers 1, 19, and 22. When the race finished, all three were the top three finishers — a finish that felt less like a coincidence and more like the day simply refusing to let him down.
**Eighty years, one wish**
There’s no dramatic twist to this story — no rescue, no danger, nothing that would typically dominate a news cycle. It’s simply a community, a track, and a handful of strangers online deciding that an 89-year-old man’s decades-long tradition deserved one more chapter, and making sure it happened while there was still time.
For a sport built on odds and long shots, it turned out the safest bet of the day was that people would show up for Bob Weihe when it counted.
*This article is based on reporting by CBS News. Read the original report [here](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/89-year-old-man-in-hospice-attends-kentucky-derby/).*
Photo by Claudio Gennari, licensed under CC BY 2.0.