LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- This Kentucky Derby week was supposed to have been a celebration. We were, by this week, supposed to be well into the home stretch of a lengthy national struggle against the novel coronavirus, if not crossing the finish line altogether.
As Derby week dawned at Churchill Downs this week I noted that the first sound I heard as I entered the grandstand was crickets. Signs of a track ready to host at least some fans were all around. "Mask required" signs all over the place. Social distancing dots at the betting windows. Hand sanitizer in the paddock.
It feels empty, in more ways than one.
"It feels like a big race," said Louisville native Dale Romans, who will train Attachment Rate in this year's Derby. "But not the big race."
When Churchill Downs postponed the Derby this past spring, it did so in the hope that time would heal, that it could run for the roses in front of a sun-splashed September crowd. Instead, the only sounds as the horses head down the home stretch this year will be approaching hoofbeats – pounding portents in tumultuous times.
In delaying the Derby, Churchill officials placed a bet on our ability to gain some measure of victory over a virus. Tear up the ticket. They lost. So have we all.
Outside the track gates on Derby day, protestors have promised to bring their struggle for racial and social justice -- and perhaps disruption -- along with it.
In May, as Derby day came and went, I walked through the empty Churchill Downs grandstand and held up this week in September as one that should inspire us to come together, to do everything we could to fight a common enemy, and earn a shared reward.
This Saturday, they will run the Derby, and I'll walk through an empty grandstand, socially distanced, wearing a mask, recording the silence. The prevailing mood will not be one of pride, but of pain, that we couldn't attack the virus in a coordinated way, and that we can't unclench our fists long enough to share any kind of reward.
The Derby we have is the Derby we have earned. As Kentuckians, we have showed our priorities far more often than I wish we had in the past month. We lobbied the state board of education with thousands of emails and calls, some of them threatening, many of them profane, to allow high school sports to go on.
The number of calls to that body concerned about actual educational issues is far less. Even as a sportswriter, I think that's sad.
As a nation and a state, we've largely decided to just wish this virus out of existence. It continues to kill and infect in this country in numbers greater than just about anywhere else in the world, but a great many want life as it was, still not acknowledging life as it is. We were content to combat it seriously for a short time, but quickly turned away out of a desire to get back to life as we had it.
It has become our national playbook. Even if the Derby could be fully opened for business, you wonder how it would fare, or how many from out of town would come into the city, given many of the images we are exporting, the 100 nights of protests, the promises of disruption to the event.
Very real and legitimate demands and frustrations rest at the heart of those protests, because we have attacked that problem, racism, with our national playbook. We combat it, sometimes seriously, for a while, but soon tire and turn back to life as we have always lived it. So it continues to rage and infect in this country.
The morning-line favorite in this year's Kentucky Derby is frustration. At mixed messages from government, which has not discouraged large-scale protests, but has asked people to consider not attending church. We're told to trust a group for leadership against a virus when it can't process and pay out the unemployment benefits it has promised to all those in need. And at mixed messages even from experts -- one group telling us one thing, and another something else. All right -- for those of us who are racetrack veterans, we're used to that.
The race itself will go on, with a twist. The horses who are favored, Tiz the Law, who figures to be the biggest Derby favorite in decades, and Art Collector, may not have been the favorites back in May. Tiz the Law did figure to be among the favorites, but Art Collector wouldn't even have been in the race. It took an entire summer for them to bloom and mature. It's a different race today than it would have been on the first Saturday in May.
As we move into the home stretch of this stormy year, with likely more calamity in the forecast, let's try to take something useful from this Derby.
Perseverance is important. The virus is a burden for us all, but pressing on can bring unexpected opportunity.
The approaching hoofbeats of this deserted Derby tell us that we are reaching a critical moment as a nation. We may miss being at the Derby; we may miss times before this virus; we may miss more settled times -- which weren't really as peaceful as perhaps they felt to certain segments of us -- but let's not miss this moment.
The race goes to the swift, yes, but it also goes to the competent, to the compassionate, and to those willing to realize, at long last, that we can't keep placing the same losing bets and expect to come out winners.
The Derby provides a distraction, yes, but we can't allow it to distract us from why we are here, in this empty place, to begin with, listening not to the roar of the crowds, but the hoofbeats.
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