REGISTER YOUR GOLD WINNER PEGASUS PINS BY WEDNESDAY
Gold Pin Grand Prize is $20,000 Cash
May 4, 2026. Louisville, KY. – Found a Gold Pegasus Pin? Make sure it’s registered! Festival fans who discovered a Gold Winner Pin in their 2026 Pegasus Pin Sponsorship envelope need to register it online at PegasusPins.com by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, May 6, to be eligible for the drawing of the $20,000 cash Gold Pin Grand Prize.
This is the fourth year the Derby Festival is giving away the $20,000 cash Gold Pin Grand Prize, and the winner will be announced on Friday, May 8 on WAVE. This year, the odds of finding a Gold Winner Pegasus Pin were 1 in 15, with more than 18,000 of the Gold Pins in circulation. All pins must be registered to be eligible. The Festival gave away 12 Grand Prizes over the course of eight weeks, including shopping sprees, grocery gift cards and more unique experiences.
“The Pegasus Pin is more than a symbol of the Kentucky Derby Festival, it’s your access pass to a season of celebration,” said Matt Gibson, Kentucky Derby Festival President & CEO. “From free admission to Festival events and coupons to a chance to win weekly grand prizes, there’s something to look forward to with every pin.”
This year’s Pegasus Pin® features a horseshoe-shaped design in a translucent teal color, a signature shade of the Festival, and is trimmed in silver, the classic color of a horseshoe. The design also spotlights the Festival’s Pegasus symbol. The horseshoe shape is a nod to early Pegasus Pin designs from the 1970s. The last time the Pegasus Pin featured a horseshoe was in 1983. In recognition of another hallmark hue of the Festival, the rubber back clasp for the pin is pink. 2026 marked the 54th edition of the Pegasus Pin.
Started as an awareness campaign for the not-for-profit civic celebration in 1973, the Pegasus Pin sponsorships are now one of four primary sources of funding for the Derby Festival. It has become a way for the community to support Festival events and show their pride in the region’s largest celebration.
Along with the chance to win Grand Prizes, each Pegasus Pin envelope also includes an offer from Great Clips and three coupons that could be from a variety of retail and business partners including Kroger, Meijer, Publix Super Markets, Main Event, the Kentucky State Fair, Kern’s Kitchen Derby-Pie®, VisionFirst and Topgolf, just to name a few.
About Pegasus Pins: The Pegasus Pin Sponsorship program was started as an awareness campaign for the Derby Festival in 1973. At that time, only 10,000 of the plastic pins were produced. The 1973 version of the pin is valued at $800-$1,000 and it’s rare to find them. Since then, the pin sponsorships have become one of the primary sources of funding for Derby Festival events. A pin sponsorship investment is a way fans can support the Kentucky Derby Festival, a not-for-profit organization providing world-class entertainment.
About Kentucky Derby Festival
2026 marks the 71st year for the Kentucky Derby Festival, a month-long celebration packed with 70+ events leading up to the first Saturday in May. As an independent community organization, it’s supported by 4,000 volunteers, more than 400 businesses and civic groups, Pegasus Pin sponsorships and event participation. It entertains more than 1.5 million people every spring and has a local economic impact of more than $200 million. This involvement has made the Festival the largest single-attended event in Kentucky and one of the leading community celebrations in the world.
