LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- It doesn't matter how many mint juleps you've downed, how much money you've lost or how bad you may be at singing: We all come together on the first Saturday in May and belt out our state song.
"My Old Kentucky Home" is the tune that gives you goose bumps as thoroughbreds trot from the Paddock to the track to make history at the Kentucky Derby.
"It's really an incredible thing to actually be there," said Natalie Humble, head drum major of the University of Louisville's Cardinal Marching Band. "So many people know that song and associate that song with something so meaningful."
The Cardinal Marching Band has led the song just before race-time for close to a century. That won't happen this year. The COVID-19 pandemic we've all learned to hate scratched the race and the traditions.
"We were really kind of grieving," said Amy Acklin, the director of band.
That is until Humble got to thinking.
"I was like, you know, it would be super cool if we could still do that," she said.
Humble saw ensembles still performing together virtually, and thought, "Why not us?"
"I just kept reaching out to my friends, and all of their friends and all of their friends' friends," she said.
A trumpet player from the University of Kentucky and a sax player from Northern Kentucky University were in, and so were 98 other musicians. What used to be a U of L-lead performance now includes all Kentucky schools.
After hours of mixing and matching the music, the final product promises to wow when its posted to the University of Louisville Cardinal Marching Band Facebook page on Derby day.
The musicians may have performed in their mom's basement or childhood bedroom and not under the Twin Spires, but the note they're hitting is just what we need right now.
"(I'm) proud beyond belief of the spirit of students and what happens when they come together," Acklin said.
You can take the horses, the fans, the fascinators and glasses of bourbon, but the spirit of Kentucky is stronger than any virus will ever be.
Copyright 2020 WDRB Media. All Rights Reserved.
