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The
Kentucky Derby
by
Ted Kane
Horse racing is a niche activity in America for most of the year.
There are those of us who invest a great deal of their time...as
well as a share of their hard-earned money...studying and watching
the races, but for everybody else the races exist on the last
page of the sports section. That all changes, of course, on the
first Saturday in May when the Kentucky Derby is run at Churchill
Downs in Louisville and the sport of kings takes center stage
nationwide. I've watched the Kentucky Derby on TV as far back
as I can remember, either at home or at my local track (first
Beulah, now Hollywood Park) with some live races thrown in. This
year, though, Christy and I finally got to see the race (as well
as its sister event the Kentucky Oaks) in person.
Going to Louisville, we were thinking that we were going down
south. I got a bit of a trim before we left, and my instructions
to the hairdresser were to shave me like Ulysses S. Grant; I wanted
to be a triumphant Union general taking the south. And there is
some southern flavor in Kentucky, to be sure. Really, though,
Louisville has at least as much to do with the midwest as it does
down south. The buildings, the greenery, the overcast skies all
reminded me of the Ohio I grew up in. It's right across the river
from Cincinnati, so it wasn't really shocking; it was a bit ironic,
though--when I'm in the Queen City I'm always struck by how southern
it is, in Kentucky it was the other way around.
We didn't get to see too much of Louisville apart from the races.
We slept away our first afternoon in town, having come in on a
red-eye flight from LAX. We were woken up by the sound of a high-school
marching band around 6, at the start of the Pegasus Parade that
kicks off the Kentucky Derby Festival. That was pretty cool; we
had wanted to see the parade, and we actually had a good view
of it from our window at the downtown Louisville Holiday Inn.
That night we did take in a bit of local color, heading out to
a club called Jim Porter's Good Time Emporium to catch the psychobilly
guitarist Unknown Hinson. Hinson's act has its share of shtick--he
wears an exaggerated pompadour and eyebrows and has a whole elaborate
and amusing mythology about his career--but he's such a good player
that you didn't really notice any of that when he was really going.
He seemed authentic in both his country and hard rock stylings,
like a good old boy who digs George Jones and Jimi Hendrix equally.
Definitely worth checking out next time he plays near you.
We got up as early as we could muster the next morning to try
and get a little more sightseeing in before we got completely
immersed in the races. We had time to check out the main library
and several old churches and other building around our hotel.
Christy says she read that Louisville has the most buildings on
the national register of historic places, and after walking around
for a while we both believed that claim.
But soon it was time to check out another historic building, Churchill
Downs. There were 23 races to be run between Friday and Saturday,
with an unusually large break between races on account of the
large crowds that were expected. It seemed like madness to try
and handicap or even simply watch every one of those, so we decided
to skip the maiden and mid-level allowance races at the beginning
and end of the cards and just concentrate on the stakes races
in the middle. We got to the track on Friday just in time to get
our bets in on the day's fourth race, the Grade III Alysheba.
The lines at the window were so long we didn't even get to the
stands to watch it, but instead stood looking at the monitor as
Corey Nakatani brought Wanderin Boy home to make us $50 richer.
We cashed our tickets--we had the winner across the board and
in an exacta (should've played the tri, really), bought our first
mint juleps--yum, taste even better when you win--and took one
of our only looks at the paddock as the crowd grew larger with
every race.
Oaks day was really nice. Thursday had seen some fairly torrential
rainfall, while Friday was overcast with intermittent and occasional
light rainfall. The track was a mess for most of the day, though,
which was helpful from a handicapping perspective. I did pretty
well that day betting on horses that had experienced success on
an off track. Not that I walked away with much of it; we bought
juleps (in cool, real glass souvenir glasses) and beers and food
and just had a good time with our winnings. We even bought disposable
ponchos, which we would come to be thankful for shortly. I should
also mention that we became part owners in two racehorses this
day (though that was with money from elsewhere). We had arranged
to meet someone from a racing syndicate in California while we
were both in Kentucky to discuss buying shares in their horses.
We are now part owners of two horses, He's the Rage and Sun Boat.
We look forward to seeing them this summer at Hollywood Park and
Del Mar.
The Kentucky Oaks, the 10th race, was the feature event on the
card and definitely the highlight on the day, even if I only got
back $4.90 of the $8 I bet on it. The Oaks is the distaff of the
Derby; while fillies are welcome to (and occasionally do) run
in the Derby, the Oaks is the premiere race for 3 year old fillies.
Garrett Gomez, for my money the best jockey in America today,
ran the favorite Rags to Riches home, pulling away down the stretch
and really seeming to enjoy the moment. Though I did like her,
I wasn't crazy about the odds and took a shot at beating her.
I put a win/show bet on High Heels, a horse that had shown an
affinity for a wet track while Rags to Riches was an unknown quantity
in the slop. I also boxed the two in an exacta, but Octave--who
I really should've had in their too, no excuses for missing her--came
in second. It was probably the most likely scenario, and I missed
the opportunity to hit a $65 trifecta. Ah, well...woulda, shoulda,
coulda. I was happy for Garrett, in any event. We skipped the
maiden race that followed and headed back to the hotel; good thing,
too, as the clouds opened up right as we were waiting in line
to get on the bus back downtown. Lightning and everything; you
don't see too much of that where I live. Fortunately, we missed
the worst of it.
The next day was the Derby, and it was sunny and beautiful. We
took the morning to tour the Louisville Slugger factory and museum--great
tour, btw; now when I watch baseball I find myself looking at
the bats in a different way--and taking a brief stroll around
the river. Soon we were back at Churchill Downs. I had thought
the track was hectic on Oaks day; Derby day was nuts. There was
a line to do anything. Betting was a disaster, the tellers were
overwhelmed, and I had the impression that many of them were brought
in as emergency staff for the big weekend. Kind of a bummer, because
I missed the opportunity to make some money with Street Sense.
I liked him all along, though I ended up betting really timidly
by that point in the day. Knowing how hard it would be to get
to an ATM if I didn't make a winning bet on the Derby (it had
taken us 20 minutes to get cash the first time, after encountering
broken ATMs at the hotel and Slugger museum), I made sure I had
enough money for bus fare and a round of juleps before placing
bets on the Derby and its immediate undercard. When Street Sense
came in, what with the huge crowds and everything, I just didn't
think it was worth it to brave all that mess for $12. (I ended
up giving the ticket away as a tip to our shuttle driver)
Really, though, none of that hassle really mattered. The 133rd
running of the Kentucky Derby was as gripping a sporting event
as I've seen in person for a long time. The gambling aspect really
didn't seem all that relevant in the face of such majesty. There
was a buzz before the running of the Oaks that went through the
crowd the day before, but I actually got chills when the marching
band played "My Old Kentucky Home." And when the horses
went off right in front of our part of the stands...wow. That
was, for me, the revelation of the weekend. As a horse racing
fan, you can get confused about what you are in it for. Are you
trying to make a buck? Are you chasing money you lost? Watching
great races like these, seeing such magnificent animals and skilled
horsemen display their skills, you're really reminded what it
is you love about the game. We'll probably watch the race at Hollywood
Park or Los Alamitos next year, but it was a tremendous experience
to attend the race in person for the first time.
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