LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Sources say that I’m a 2-to-5 shot to grumble during Kentucky Derby week.
I grumble today because I won’t have a moment to grumble about the dark, cold, windy and sometimes wet mornings at Churchill Downs.
This will be a Derby week unlike any other. This will be a Derby week that will remind the grumblers what is wonderful about the Kentucky Derby.
The Derby is the rare offering on the sports calendar that challenges you to show up by 6 a.m. to watch practice.
Yes, Allen Iverson, practice?
In other sports, coaches close practice. They lock the doors. They cover the fences. They call security.
Churchill Downs opens its gates before dawn and challenges you to beat sunrise to the track. Day after day after day.
Derby week gives you the opportunity to marvel at the chefs, celebrities, goats, vendors, baths, courtesy cars, stray cats, stylish outfits, roosters, touts and other oddballs that make the barn area energized and outlandish Derby real estate.
Another grumble. I will miss the energy and outlandishness next week.
I’d be stimulated by the dark, cold, windy and even wet mornings because Derby week would fix my sports clock. It’s been broken by the novel coronavirus for 45 days.
Some days it seems as if it’s the end of May. Some days it’s still March 12, and I am waiting for the University of Louisville basketball team to play its ACC Tournament quarterfinal game against Syracuse, the one that was canceled with the rest of the college basketball season in Greensboro, N.C.
Some days it’s simply confusing, as if somebody put the calendar on tilt. Tuesday is Friday, which is Monday, which is Saturday, which is every day, which is puzzling.
No Final Four. No Masters. No Derby.
The Kentucky Derby and its annually fascinating stories would fix my internal calendar.
I close my eyes and see Charlie Whittingham, a Hall of Fame trainer, dropping to the ground while wearing a trench coat in the shed row at Barn 41.
Why? Because somebody had questioned if Whittingham was still Marines-tough.
One, two, three, four, five, 10, 20 pushups.
Whittingham, 76 years old at the time, pumped out 20 powerful pushups and quickly asked who had the next question.
Not me, Mr. Whittingham, sir.
I look at the landscaping around my house and wonder why it can never look as beautiful as D. Wayne Lukas keeps Barn 44.
Nobody understands marketing the way Lukas understands selling horse racing — and that was before he trained Winning Colors, Thunder Gulch, Grindstone and Charismatic, his four Derby winners, as well as a string of protege trainers.
I think about trainers like Cam Gambolati (Spend a Buck, 1985), Chip Woolley (Mine That Bird, 2009) and Art Sherman (California Chrome, 2014), who got their one shining moment the first Saturday in May and never asked for anything more.
They dropped the mic. They were done. Dream of a lifetime realized.
How many times do you get to watch somebody celebrate the dream of a lifetime?
I remember when another owner/trainer, Shelley Riley, dismissed one of my columns at “pithy.” Then she agreed to talk to me anyway because Riley was convinced her colt (Casual Lies) was a legitimate Derby contender.
And he was —even though Casual Lies finished second in 1992. Nice job, Shelley. I wasn't trying to be pithy.
I remember jockey Pat Day climbing aboard a long and unsatisfying string of talented Derby colts and then absolutely cherishing the moment after he finally scored in 1992 aboard Lil E. Tee.
The next year was equally amazing. Mack Miller, a 71-year-old trainer, celebrated his first Derby win with Sea Hero — and my pal Dave Roos wrote this unforgettable headline:
“The Old Man and the Sea (Hero).”
Good luck topping that.
I remember the first time Bob Baffert made it to the backside in 1996. The hardboots looked at Baffert’s stylish sunglasses and designer jeans and dismissed him as an out-of-his-league former quarter-horse trainer shooting for the stars.
Bob who?
Wasn’t Baffert the first guy to communicate with his exercise rider on a walkie-talkie? Ben Jones and Lucien Laurin would never do that.
Whatever happened to that Baffert character, anyway?
Wasn’t 2020 going to be the year Baffert tied the record set by Ben Jones of training six Derby winners?
See you in September, Bob. Let's keep our fingers crossed.
I’ll miss the Derby characters next week.
Mornings at Churchill Downs during Derby week can be dark, cold, windy and sometimes wet. Yes, they’ve made me grumble.
But this will be a week that will remind even the grumblers what is remarkable about Kentucky Derby week.
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