A Day at the Downs

By G. Rollo Begley | Wednesday, October 8, 2003

"Show us your titties!" "Show your boobs!"

The girl in question, having chosen her beads from the dozens being offered, was more than happy to oblige and lifted her shirt up for the better part of a minute, to the delight of the gathered crowd. Harry and I looked at each other, smiled, and finished our Coors Lights.

Six minutes later, we were sipping mint juleps while chatting with a well dressed, thirty-something couple from Cincinnati who owned their own real estate firm and were considering investing in a thoroughbred.

In case the juleps didn't tip you off, it was Derby Day, and we were at the Downs.

Like a modern day Globe Theater, the Kentucky Derby is remarkable for many things, not the least of which is the sheer variety of people it draws.Busloads of college students from Vanderbilt, the University of Kentucky, and other nearby schools happily fork over the forty-dollar general admission fee, and then take over the infield and turn it into something of a Bluegrass Mardi Gras, similar in many ways to the University of Virginia's ever-popular Fox Fields event, held two weeks earlier. Unlike Fox Fields, however, the Derby also draws a significant crowd of very serious racing fans, many of them coming from the United Kingdom, the Middle East, and Australia.

Our trip started on Friday evening, when we both kicked off from our jobs in DC and jumped in Harry's Tahoe for the ten-hour haul. Done mostly at night, it was a bit difficult to see the landscape that we had heard was so gorgeous. We did, however, see enough to conclude that Charleston, West Virginia is the single most depressing place in the world. In a desperate attempt to revive our spirits, I quickly turned on a Jimmy Buffett CD, but I was far too late. The damage was done. Our spirits crushed by the endless coalmines buffered by the endless trailer parks, we found ourselves unable to complete our dream of being at Churchill Downs by 6 AM. Instead, we crashed for the night in a rest stop just short of the Kentucky state line.

Luckily, we had had the foresight to take a spin around the Washington and Lee campus while passing through Lexington, and visions of southern belles danced in our heads as we drifted off to sleep.

After a few hours, I groggily awoke to find us on the road again, courtesy of Harry's giddy anticipation, and a few hours later we finally arrived in Louisville. We made a brief stop at a supermarket for some supplies, but found to our great dismay that there was no fresh mint. As Harry's ire grew, I assured him that we would be able to find mint near the Downs, and I hoped to hell I was right.

If Dartmouth exams asked where you could find mint in Kentucky, I'd have a passing GPA. As soon as we parked, I walked up to a nice young lady [Editor's note: In Mr. Begley's parlance, "nice young lady" can generally be interpreted as "gorgeous blonde"] who looked as though she knew the area. Doing my best to sound local, I struck up a polite conversation.

"So... do you listen to Bill Monroe?"

"It's over there, in the corner."

"Bill Monroe is?"

"The mint."

"Oh. Uh.... Okay, thanks."

To my last day, I'll never know how that Dixie vixen knew what I was looking for. God bless her.

Our final ingredient in hand, we mixed up some killer mint juleps. My personal recipe involves a secret ingredient that I could never share with such a large audience, but a sufficiently tasty version can be made with bourbon, mint, and a simple syrup for those of you who need a taste of Kentucky. Our mint went straight from the plant to the drink, and our bourbon was the finest you can buy (or at least the finest that comes in a plastic bottle), so our juleps were guaranteed to be tasty. We mixed up three batches to keep us going for the day: Harry's flask, a water bottle, and an extra classy 20oz. Coke bottle. Yes, we were going to the infield. We had a bit of a walk from our parking spot to the Downs, and then a twenty-minute admissions line, all of which gave us plenty of time to kill the water bottle. Luckily we still had the two other containers and a newfound buzz. Unluckily, security was onto me. While Harry managed to sneak a five-ounce metal flask past the guard with the supposed metal-detecting wand, my plastic bottle of "Coke" was immediately detected and confiscated.

"Next time ya gotta tape it to your thigh. I'da never found it there," the security guard suggested. It was good to know we were in such safe hands.

Regardless, we were in. We were at the Kentucky Derby. We passed under the track with a massive crowd of bikers, frat boys, and other unclassifiable drunks who all let loose their Rebel yells as soon as they entered the tunnel. We emerged into the bright sunshine and a pit of already drunk college kids and liquor vendors. I thought I'd died and someone had mistakenly sent me up. Nobody could see the horses and nobody cared. Why bother when there's beer?

Being a good Ulsterman, however, I knew that there are few better places to make beer money than the horse track, and I quickly guided Harry to the Paddock. "But Rollo, there's naked girls out here," he protested. I wasn't hearing any of it. Far better to be rich, drunk, and getting lucky than sober and looking. We were just in time to place a bet for the sixth race. I ran to the tote, but Harry thought he'd just watch me work my magic for our first race. I won. We could buy drinks.

A desperate booze-hound, Harry decided he was going to try to go for the Pick 6 wager, a bet where he had to pick the winner of six consecutive races for a guaranteed pool of $750,000. We'd be drinkin' some might fine bourbon if that came off.

We placed bets on each of the next four races, winning several of our more conservative bets and losing a couple of long shots. Overall, we were doing reasonably well, but the main attraction was yet to come. We decided we would skip the 11th race so that we could snag a sweet spot by the paddock to watch the Derby contenders parade around. It wasn't an easy decision, especially since Harry had studied up the speed figures and had an insight into the 11th: "Well, whattya know? Look here, Rollo, there's a horse called 'Honor in War.' Maybe we should bet on this race after all."

"Brilliant, Harry," I replied. "We should forgo second row seats at the Paddock for the Kentucky Derby because you want to put two dollars on a twenty-four to one long shot on the basis that it has a cool name. S—t like this is the reason why we're not professional handicappers." It should, of course, go without saying that Honor in War ran a brilliant race and won.

All of which brings us to the 129th annual Run for the Roses. The horses, magnificent specimens all, circled the paddock to the background noise of Harry's persistent gloating over the previous race.

We placed our bets and decided to watch the race from the infield. We couldn't see the actual race from outside, and besides, the scenery was decidedly better in the pit. Upon our return, we found ourselves in the narrow majority of people who were still conscious and in the distinct minority of people who were coherent. Two quick juleps went a long way towards rectifying that unfortunate situation.

The crowd surged into a frenzy as the starting gun went off, an excitement level that was maintained, and even increased, right up until the finish, when Funny Cide hit the wire. I was pleased with the result: Funny Cide, like me, is a native New Yorker. Unlike Funny Cide, however, I am not a gelding. The crowd's reaction to the race was complete and utter nonchalance from almost every quarter, save the winning few. It was remarkable: the thrill of victory almost completely absent of the agony of defeat. Nobody had lost out here in the distant infield. The Jumbotrons displayed the delighted winning jockey, owners, and trainer, and then the devastated ones, but where we were, the latter group simply didn't exist. If your horse didn't win, you took a swig of your beer and then returned to whatever conversational topic you had been discussing previously (i.e. breasts).

We exited the track through the grandstand, where we passed by the paddock and under the luxury boxes. To the delight of the audience, we turnedin time to see Ozzy Osbourne waving to the crowd from above. Money and trash all at once: yep, he belonged at the Derby. We later learned that Anna Nicole Smith was also present.

A Day at the Downs

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