THE FILLIES® is a non-profit organization and is a support group of the Kentucky Derby Festival. It works with the selection process of the Derby Princesses™ candidates and Derby Queen™ candidate.
Each year, the Derby Queen™ candidate is selected by the spin of the wheel at the Fillies Derby Ball®.
She attends over 70 KDF events.
She reigns over the Fillies Derby Ball® coronation. The DERBY QUEEN™ coronation was founded in 1959 by Frances Askew Davis, the 17-member Fillies Club began their history of volunteer service to the Kentucky Derby® festivities. From crowning the first queen of the Derby Queen™ coronation held during the Fillies Derby Ball® event, the group has grown to an active membership of 250 and was incorporated as a nonprofit organization in 1971.
Today, THE FILLIES® club publishes the Festival's Official Program, coordinates the Derby Princesses™ program, creates a float for the Pegasus Parade and still sponsors the Fillies Derby Ball® event. The Fillies, Inc. was first organized to give Kentucky a lavish ball as the backdrop for the coronation of a queen of the Kentucky Derby Festival. Then seventeen women led by Mrs. Davis planned an elaborate setting of oversized red tarlatan roses and jeweled crowns for their first ball. The only rules of membership at the time were for all ladies to work on the Fillies Derby Ball® event, further the fame of Kentucky and place a $2 bet on any filly entered in the Kentucky Derby®. Nowadays, five young women are selected by a Fillies screening committee to serve in the Derby Princesses™ program, with one chosen during the Derby Queen™ coronation the night of the Fillies Derby Ball® event. A spin-of-the-wheel, which is still practiced today, sends one girl from the Derby Princesses™ program to the throne to rule, with her court of four, over the Kentucky Derby® festivities. Now for more than two weeks, the queen and her court reign over more than 70 events and serve as ambassadors for the Festival; the Kentucky Derby®, the Greater Louisville area, and the state of Kentucky at its most exciting time.
Also begun at the first Fillies Derby Ball® event was the induction of Knights and Dames to the Royal Court. Outstanding Kentuckians were chosen for their service to the community to be "knighted" by the incoming queen. This practice now includes the induction of the outgoing Fillies President and the outgoing Derby Festival Chair, with one member of the community at large selected by the Fillies membership.
Kentucky Derby® is a registered trademark of Churchill Downs Incorporated. Derby Queen, Derby Princesses, Fillies Derby Ball, and The Fillies are trademarks of The Fillies, Inc.
