Premieres Monday, April 13, 2026 at 11 p.m. on KPBS TV / Stream with KPBS+
“Backside: The Unseen Hands of Horse Racing,” is a powerful new documentary revealing the hidden labor sustaining one of America’s most celebrated sporting traditions, the Kentucky Derby.
Set behind the iconic pageantry of the world’s most famous horse race, the documentary takes viewers into the rarely seen world of the “backside” of Churchill Downs, where grooms and hotwalkers, the majority of whom are immigrants, care for some of the most valuable racehorses in the world. Through intimate, observational storytelling, director Raúl O. Paz-Pastrana honors the resilience, expertise, and dignity of a community whose contributions have long remained invisible.
Rising before dawn and laboring long after the crowds leave, these workers form the backbone of an elite industry shaped by race, class, and power. Showcasing the grit, skill, and deep knowledge required to maintain peak equine performance, the film emphasizes the profound, symbiotic relationship between humans and horses—a bond that can decide everything in the high-stakes world of horse racing.
Paz-Pastrana gives voice to the people who sustain this elite American institution and quietly illuminates how wealth and tradition are upheld through largely unseen immigrant hands.
Filmed over the course of a full racing season, “Backside” offers a portrait of contemporary America, contrasting the massive wealth on display with the physical demands, low wages, and limited visibility of the labor force sustaining it, while underscoring how race and class continue to shape opportunity in the United States.
While mainstream coverage of horse racing tends to spotlight jockeys, trainers, gamblers, and the horses themselves, “Backside” centers on the migrant labor force that makes the entire enterprise possible. Rather than romanticizing hardship or reducing workers’ stories to immigration narratives, the documentary reveals the complexity of their lives and aspirations.
Filmmaker Quotes:
“Paz-Pastrana has created a fly-on-the-wall portrait that strips away spectacle and lets the humanity of this work speak for itself,” said Lois Vossen, INDEPENDENT LENS founding executive producer. “A film’s intimacy is rooted in the trust between filmmaker and subjects, and the results are the rigorously observed rhythms, labor, and emotional stakes of the hidden forces shaping American life. ‘Backside’ captures why INDEPENDENT LENS exists: to give voice to the unseen and reframe what we think we know.”
“What makes this film so powerful is how it allows the viewer into the lives of these workers,” added Sandie Viquez Pedlow, executive director of Latino Public Broadcasting. “Immigrants are foundational to our society, and ‘Backside’ honors their passion, expertise, and dignity with rare warmth and clarity.”
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Credits: A co-production of Backside Films, LLC., ITVS and Latino Public Broadcasting. A co-presentation of PBS’s INDEPENDENT LENS and VOCES.
