Churchill Downs reveals what happens to pounds of horse poop from the track

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — We bathe horses in bold colors and roses and bet money on them winning big.

At the end of the day though, they are still animals, and horses are going to do what they have to do.

The top brass at Churchill Downs will tell you what comes from a horse's bottom is a top priority.

"I mean anyone that owns a dog, you know what your backyard looks like, imagine 1,400 horses," Churchill Downs spokesman Darren Rogers said.

He knows how to paint a picture.

Steve Hargrave orchestrates removal. He's Churchill's Stable Manager, aka Man of the Manure, aka King of the Horse Stall.

The process starts in each barn where it's the duty of a couple of employees to grab a shovel and start scooping.

"Twice a day, minimum, they go in and clean those stalls, where the wet spots are and the manure, and they basically bring in a wheel barrel and haul it out,” Hargrave said.

Poo pits are strategically placed backside, fittingly, on both sides of most barns.

"We saw a truck carrying it out," a tourist told WDRB.

The semi, that can't have enough air fresheners in the cab, stops at Keeneland first.

"They'll go to an area there, and they'll dump it there, bail it," Hargrave explained.

Then it's off to mushroom farms. WDRB followed the scent to one in Tennessee.

Monterey Mushrooms in Loudon, just outside Knoxville, is the lucky recipient of three to five trucks full of "deposits" a day.

"We have more coming in right now, than when it dies back down after the Kentucky Derby," said David Ghiglione from Monterey Mushrooms.

Each shipment is dropped off behind the plant, then composting begins.

"It's not 100 percent manure," explained Hargrave. "There's straw bedding that is mixed in."

No need for blinders, it's not visually troubling, but you are lucky you can't smell through the internet.

"For us in the mushroom industry, that's the smell of money," Ghiglione said.

The scat serves as a base.

"What mushrooms need to grow is, they need fiber and carbohydrates," Ghiglione explained.

In these rooms, proteins and chicken "nuggets" (not from a Happy Meal) are added, and pasteurization kills the nasty.

The Portabello, Baby Bellas, and white basic mushrooms grow and are picked fast, and then they're off to...

“Walmart, Costco, Trader Joe's, and Kroger,” said Ghiglione.

But what about the number 2 that doesn't make it to the number 1 dumping grounds?

“Sometimes we have employees who take some," Hargrave said.

That kind of statement will have you saying "Excuse me?"

"I've got American Pharoah droppings right here, DNA from the king himself," said Churchill Downs employee, Greg Bush.

He understands crapshoots better than a lot of others.

"I basically oversee all the gambling at the race track," Bush explained.

One of the Triple Crown winner’s final “gifts” to the track sits in a box in Bush’s office.

"Trust me, it's a conversation piece," he said with a chuckle.

Just when you think you’ve heard it all from back in the day to now, comes a horse tale that’s rarely told. And now that it has, "Well I feel relieved," Hargrave said.