Peter Fuller, the only owner of a Kentucky Derby winner to be disqualified after finishing first, died on Monday at the age of 89, according to multiple reports.

Fuller, a New England car dealer whose father was a United States Senator and governor of Massachusetts, was the owner of Dancer’s Image, who won the 1968 Kentucky Derby but was disqualified from the race after postrace drug tests revealed the presence of phenylbutazone, the popular painkiller, which, at the time, was illegal to appear in postrace tests.

From 1987 to 2011, the average winning Kentucky Derby Beyer was 109. Until 2009, it was really a given that the winner had to get into that range. No more.

Once is an aberration. Four times is a pattern.

Mine That Bird got a 105 when he won in 2009 by 6 3/4 lengths. Which means the rest of them ran way below expectations.

Super Saver got a 104 in 2010 when Calvin Borel carved out a third perfect trip in four years.

Animal Kingdom got a 103 in 2011 when the rest of the field seemed to be going backward in the stretch.

The race portion of the Kentucky Derby broadcast on NBC on Saturday posted a 9.0 national rating and a 20 share, according to data released by NBC on Tuesday, a slight increase over viewership data from last year’s race.

Compared to other major sporting events, the Derby rating stacks up favorably. This year’s two Final Four games of the NCAA tournament, for example, received ratings of 9.0 and 9.6, with each game also posting a 17 share. Games in the ongoing Stanley Cup playoffs are currently averaging a rating of approximately 1.5.

Photos from the 138th running of the Kentucky Derby on Saturday, May 5, show how the race unfolded.

Union Rags gets pinched between Dullahan and the No. 3 horse, Take Charge Indy, at the start of the 138th Kentucky Derby and was never able to recover. [Photo: Jenny Burgos]

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – It was yet another respectable effort, albeit another losing one. In the last three runnings of the Kentucky Derby, horses trained by Dale Romans have finished third (Paddy O’Prado, 2010), fourth (Shackleford, 2011), and third (Dullahan, 2012), and it’s starting to frustrate the Louisville-born trainer a little.

When jockey Mario Gutierrez won the Kentucky Derby aboard I’ll Have Another, his triumph was the sort that usually happens only in corny racing fiction. Casual fans surely appreciated his saga, though they may not have recognized the other main story line of the Derby.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – The screaming, shouting, and celebrating was short-lived at trainer Doug O’Neill’s stable at Betfair Hollywood Park on Saturday afternoon following the win by I’ll Have Another in the Kentucky Derby.

The reality of backstretch life interfered in the moments after the race. It was time to head for the paddock to prepare another starter.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – On the morning of Feb. 27, less than 24 hours after Union Rags’s triumphant 3-year-old debut in the Fountain of Youth, trainer Michael Matz stood beaming outside his barn at the Palm Meadows training center, secure and confident in the knowledge that he had the horse to beat in the Kentucky Derby.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Less than 48 hours after his victory in the Kentucky Derby on Saturday, I’ll Have Another will travel to Baltimore to begin preparations for the second leg of the Triple Crown, the Preakness Stakes, on May 19 at Pimlico.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Florida Derby winner Take Charge Indy came out of his 19th-place finish in Saturday’s Kentucky Derby with a chip in his left front ankle and will miss the major summer races, trainer Pat Byrne said Sunday morning.

Byrne said Take Charge Indy would undergo surgery early this week to have the chip removed. After 60 days of inactivity, Take Charge Indy will resume training, and Byrne hopes to get the horse back for a fall campaign.