Millennium Man's Kentucky Derby Review
The Derby.
From the time when man had tamed the
second horse, there have been horse races. Breeds and bloodlines run bluer here than many crowned families in Europe. And they have been for centuries. The finest specimens have been sold and traded from the most prestigious stables in the world. Two of this year's entries were owned by some sheik who built a full scale replica of Churchill Downs, somewhere in Arabia, complete with sound recordings of 100,000 cheering people. It didn't pay off. And then there was General Challenge, a massive thoroughbred, almost a head longer than the largest entry.Most Americans and many foreigners know that the Kentucky Derby is a classic horse race. Not until you've been there to hear the crowd and smell the tension as they fill the gates can you appreciate the beauty of this contest, truly the sport of kings.
The Road
The road down I-65 was mellow and sparse with traffic. We loaded the camper in the dark and were on the highway by 5:15 on Friday morning, stopping for fresh coffee. Harry turned the Jeep south, cranked up the tapes and we're gone. In an hour the orange marmalade sunrise woke up the eastern horizon while the purple western sky silhouetted the full moon, which hung on to the night until the sun took charge of the morning. Such a glorious sight had to be the harbinger of a lucky weekend. After full daylight, the rest of the ride was a trip past the same scenery--farm, pond, trees, farm, pond, trees -- over and over. Oh, Indiana, you are so plain. I know your small towns and people are quaint and cordial, but, at least from the interstate, you're a pretty big bore. And
Victor slept.Fast Food
Just south of Indianapolis, we stopped for breakfast at the slowest McDonald's in the country. Those franchises in other countries, yes, even France, have to be faster. We ordered and waited as the help bantered and cajoled with some of the regular customers, cackling about the local gossip like it was the corner bar or something. Our bagel meals came out one at a time (probably one microwave per location) and we ate in shifts before we could hit the trail once again.
Louisville
Arriving into this city from the north, the traveler is treated to a beautiful skyline view as we crossed the Ohio river and entered Kentucky. A city of about a million people, Louisville is host to boat races, river festivals, college doings et al, but for the first week in May, it gears itself up for the biggest festival of all, the Kentucky Derby. Handicappers, gamblers, bikers, and party goers of all ages pour into town by the thousands on Friday. The townsfolk don't mess around. They are the friendliest people I've ever run across but the mayor has the national guard MPs out to help the local police make sure order is kept.
Jack and Yvonne's
Taylor Boulevard, the main drag through the south side is filled with people, standing outside their houses, carrying signs announcing how much it will cost you to park in their yard. The closer the house is to Churchill Downs, the more you pay. Harry and Victor have been going down for years and we bypass all the houses and pull up into a yard in the 3200 block. Jack and Yvonne are late 20 somethings with three kids and they have two yards in which they will charge ten bucks a car. We set up the camper and ran the electricity to it. The house is at our disposal and our hosts throw a party the entire weekend, a continuous barbecue in the front yard and a constant tap on the keg in the basement. And the fun begins. We are in the center of activities, within walking distance to everything . . and walk we did.
Block Party
On the south side of town the neighborhoods for a couple mile radius of Churchill Downs get spruced up for revelry. It's at the corner of Taylor Blvd. and Central Avenue that they block off Central and pronounce the weekend block party. Here, businesses and residents set up stands and counters and the carnival begins, a traditional party of thousands of people, mingling the front yards from one end of the neighborhood to the other, flirting, drinking and just having a good time getting to know everyone. "Where you from?" is the question of the night and, after you get to know someone, you never see them again for the rest of your life.
This is the last year of the block party. The city fathers have made a plan to contain it in some antiseptic place in the future and, like Chicagofest and Milwaukee's Summerfest, it will go out like a light when everything is homogenized and commercialized. So this year's affair was the last. It was good to be part of a happy, if short-lived, attitude. To the folks on the south side, you know how to have a good time. We enjoyed it.
Hats
The Derby is a place for hats. This sport of kings has drawn fine ladies to the track for centuries and it's a day for a man to show off his lady and for the lady to
show off herself. What better way than to wear her finest chapeau for the event. It's a social event after all. The grand stands are filled with them, white the predominant color, and the men are wearing skimmers, newsboys, and the horsemen's straw hat with wide brims. They give the day a mysterious and exciting look. Across the track in the infield the crowd is wearing everything from ball caps, fedoras, gamblers and I saw one Derby, and that was Harry's. There were horse heads, a sombrero, and home-mades of all kinds. One young woman fashioned one by punching a hole in a styrofoam cooler lid. Classy.Check out our official
Kentucky Derby Hats Photo page . . .Billy Bob Teeth
Along the way up Central we fell into the throng of race-goers and walked the avenue of vendors and onlookers. Victor's eye was caught by a guy selling Billy Bob Teeth, the chick magnet of this year's affair. Every year there is a new gimmick to peddle. This item is a set of fake front upper teeth, crooked, jagged, yellow teeth that, when inserted over the consumer's own pearly whites, protrude in public like the hickest hick. There was a gummy type mold that the user puts into them and presses them on to mold to his own. There were at least a half dozen styles and you couldn't tell that they were fake. Victor kept pushing his luck outside in the street by posing alongside guys with real Billy Bob Teeth. Only at the Derby.
Handicapping
My friend, Harry, was a born book maker and learned handicapping as a child. It helped him get through math in high school because he understood, at an early age, the fine art of formulating the percentages and odds. "The idea is to become thirty percent correct. Do that and you won't ever have to work again," he says, confidently. He showed us how to use the statistics and we calculated a point average on his Mattel pocket handicapper. It boiled down to how much class each horse had.
I didn't use this method at the track because I had my own system upon which to rely. I bet the favorite across the board, which meant one bet each to win, place second, and show third. A win pays all three and if he finishes anywhere in the money, I get back a little. And this is good. My next ploy is to take my second choice and make a bet to place second. And finally, I would pick out a long-shot whose name had some meaning or other, or if I had heard of the jockey before. None of these angles worked during the outing, which accounted for the reason I came home with a buck, which hangs on my refrigerator door as a grim reminder. The people who cashed in on this race were the ones who said, "Charismatic . . I like that name."
The Gadget of the Day
Eddie Arcaro is to jockeys as Harry is to gadgets. He goes golfing, you can guarantee he has a gadget or two in his bag. It was at the Family Dollar on Taylor Blvd. that he found the mint julep carry-alls. That’s not what they were called but that was the purpose for this weekend. It consisted of a brightly colored plastic tumbler (the size of a complete mint julep), with a screw-on cap and straw assembly and a cover that snapped shut, sealing the top and crimping the flexible plastic straw to guarantee no leakage. The whole thing hung around the user's neck with a
plastic cord. It was the perfect thing to drink while tabulating the odds, counting money, shooting a picture, and smoking a cigar. They were the perfect fit for the Derby . . . no spillage, no breakage, and nobody wore any.The Show
With an infield crowd of over 110,000 (a second best record) and a beautifully warm and sunny day, the show was started by 11:00 in the morning. The day is filled with beer drinking, gambling, flirting and cajoling all round the track, the excitement focusing on one race every forty-five minutes, covering the seven races before the big show. The first couple of races are maiden races (young two year olds in their first contest) and not easy to handicap, considering there is no record on any of them. So we don't try to beat the crowd in the gates. You won't find us sleeping in the street, waiting to be first in the door.
We got a late start though and didn't get in until the fourth race. That was okay because we managed the perfect spot in front of the women's bathrooms, the shower and close to the beer, mint juleps, and the windows. A couple hours into our own party I thought it was odd that they were just now playing the Star Spangled Banner!? Strictly for TV. They started the telecast before the seventh race. That meant there's an hour and a half before the start of the big one. And what do they do? Circulate around a bunch of talking heads. I challenge them to come inside the infield and catch the
real show, the community of the infield.Show Us Your Tits
Any event that lives longer than 124 years gets steeped in tradition. The Derby is no stranger to tradition. The blanket of roses for the winner, singing My Old Kentucky Home prior to the race are only two. One tradition, which I hear migrated from New Orleans' Mardi Gras, is show us your tits. Here, a nubile young woman sits high on her man's shoulders and, to the delight of all, raises her shirt to expose her breasts. Interspersed in the crowd, I had seen people with these brightly colored glass beads, which everyone knows as New Orleans' beads. The story I got was if a woman wanted a string of beads, she had to bare her bosom. I never heard of this custom anywhere else but I'll have to go down to Mardi Gras sometime and check it out. I don't know how accurate that bit of lore is but, when you see kids having fun, showing off their bodies, well. . . . it's fun.
Juanita's
A few doors south of Jack and Yvonne's, the road bends a little to the left and in that elbow of the block stands Juanita's, a liquor store and tavern. The typical corner bar, Juanita's consists of the color TV and complete CD jukebox for the bar in front, and a pool table and DJ setup in the back room. On Friday night, the karaoke was set up and visitors and locals alike shared in the fun. It was back here in the karaoke room that we met Steven from Anchorage, Alaska. He was tall and thin, with a new beard and pony tail tucked behind his baseball cap. He smiled a crooked smile and told Harry and me how Friday was the happiest day of his life. He had driven six days to get here and found the people so hospitable that he was considering staying around for a while. It was difficult to hear with the sound system right there but we shook hands a lot and smiled a lot and he went back to his pool game.
He was a little upset when his 8-Ball partner left the game and let a young black woman shoot, but he settled down when she ran the last three balls and sank the 8-ball for the game. You could tell he was happy, it was the happiest day of his life.
The Derby experience is more than getting lucky. The weekend is a mix of simple pleasure, laughter and festival, that everyone should put into their lives. And when so many total strangers can get along together, like family, it is a good thing.
Millennium Man doesn't say that the Derby is the answer. It could be a cool evening in the city or a favorite fishing hole.
Find whatever it is in life that excites you and gives you a great feeling to be alive and live that feeling.
Find it . . . Do it.
We owe it to ourselves.