With the 145th running of the Kentucky Derby tomorrow at Churchill Downs, Louisville International Airport-Standiford Field (SDF)—located just three miles from the famed racecourse—is preparing for the customary onslaught of private aircraft. While the airport generally sees less than 20 private departures a day, according to statistics from WingX, Derby Week accounts for 10 percent of the private traffic for the year, with as many as 500 operations a day.

Dubbed “The Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports,” the Derby draws tens of thousands of viewers. “We always see exceptionally high demand for private jets at the beginning of May to the race, which is the highest attended horse race in the U.S.” explained Richard Thompson, president of Air Charter Service Americas.

His company analyzed the WingX data from last year’s Derby Week and noted there were approximately 1,500 private jet movements into and out of Louisville. “Most of the flights were short hops of less than an hour and a half, with the two most popular routes being out of and back into the New York [area] airports of Teterboro and Westchester County,” Thompson said.

Atlantic Aviation, which operates the lone FBO on the field, recently renovated its facility and partnered with the airport and U.S. CBP to create a new general aviation facility for clearing international flights.