Trip to the Kentucky Derby becomes the role of lifetime

The Kentucky humorist Irvin S. Cobb once said, “Until you go to Kentucky and with your own eyes behold the Derby, you ain’t never been nowheres and you ain’t seen nothin.” Cobb may not have specifically intended that statement to be a life lesson, but his sentiment has nevertheless helped to lead me to several of the most special moments in my life.

You see, in 1986, after a lifetime of watching on television, I finally decided it was time for me to see the Derby in person. So, along with two other relatively young, and poor, racing enthusiasts, I headed east in an old blue van to take in the infield shenanigans at the spectacle known as “the greatest two minutes in sports.”

We stayed in a campground several miles outside of Louisville the night we got to town, and the next day drove the hour or so to Churchill Downs and the Derby itself. Once there, we set up our folding chairs in the infield grass, opened our Racing Forms, and began handicapping the day’s races.

The sights and sounds were all I had hoped for, and the blur of my first visit was highlighted by a $2 to win bet on the Derby winner, Ferdinand. The sound of 150,000 people singing “My Old Kentucky Home” brought tears to my eyes, like I’m sure it does for many others. With that, I was hooked. For the next dozen years, I made sure I was there in person, always in the infield, in the center of it all. By that time, our little entourage of friends had grown to anywhere from four to 10 fellow race lovers.

Our 1994 adventure started out with rain. Without cover in the infield, we put up our hoods and umbrellas and continued to study our racing forms while doing our best to ignore the weather. As we sat there, damp and handicapping, we were approached by several people holding microphones and large cameras. They asked if they could talk to us and if they could film our conversations. Since it was raining, and most others in the infield seemed to be miserable, they told us that they thought it unusual that we were enjoying ourselves despite the weather.

We assumed they were from a local news channel. They laughed and said, “No, we are making a documentary on the Derby.” They had been filming every Derby day for several years, and this was to be their last day of shooting before they began editing. We laughed, too, and gave them our opinions on racing and handicapping. One of our gang, when asked about losing money at the track, said, “Some people take their money and spend a day playing golf. We take our money and spend a day at the track.”

“Sometimes, we even come home with more money than we started. That never happens when I play golf,” I said.

Louis Guida, the guy in charge, asked if he could follow me as I made a wager. As I walked through the very packed infield, with these huge cameras following me, the crowd had no choice but to part, and I heard people around me saying “Who is that guy?” as I passed, thinking, I suppose, that I must have been someone famous.  Some of my buddies could not help themselves and told them that I was Jeffrey Dahmer’s father. I didn’t catch their response. After filming me in line to bet, I asked if they could now turn their attention to others, said my goodbyes, and left. For years, my friends and I enjoyed telling this account of our run in with a guy who had hoped to sell his film, when completed, to PBS.

Several years later, in 1997, as we were preparing for another year’s expedition to the Derby, I saw in TV Guide that there was a program called You Ain’t Seen Nothin’: Tales of the Kentucky Derby scheduled that was dealing with the upcoming race. I immediately realized that this was something that I had to see. I sat that night watching this fabulous documentary unfold, full of interviews with celebrities, trainers, owners, and workers, all of which captured the various types who attended the Derby. The shots of the horses were beautiful and wonderful. The commentary on the races themselves was thrilling. As the film shifted to the infield, I was suddenly stunned to hear not only my voice, but that of others in our party. Then it appeared, with no warning – film of us, talking in the infield. Those rain-drenched friends of mine and I were now, in a sense, movie stars. The director also used some of the footage from my walk to the betting windows.

You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ wound up winning several awards for Louis Guida, as things turned out. He got the title from the saying by Irwin Cobb, and to top it off, he was nice enough to include our names in the credits.

Those who go to the Derby all have wonderful stories about their experiences. If you have ever done so, or are just a fan of racing, I hope you enjoyed hearing about this one of mine. My next highlight is one that is even closer to my heart.

To be continued…