The Derby is a real harbinger of Spring along with the leaves on trees, robins, and snowmelt that fills rivers and streams. The birds are there and the streams are swollen, but we don't have Spring Training anymore. Not this year.
All, however, is not doom and gloom. Yesterday no Kentucky Derby but it has been rescheduled for the first Saturday in September. The management at Oaklawn Park, in Hot Springs, Arkansas did take advantage of the date and offered in place of "the" Derby the 2020 version of the Arkansas Derby. Oaklawn's Derby has traditionally been an important prep race for would-be Kentucky Derby aspirants. That still goes. Run in two divisions yesterday it yielded two promising 3-year-old colts, both trained by Bob Baffert, who are legitimate Triple Crown candidates. So despite the loss of our Kentucky rite of passage, we got not what we wanted, but what we needed. The two winning horses yesterday, Charlatan and Nadal will both need to stay healthy and run at least one more time before September 5th takes them down the Triple Crown trail.
So like thousands of others I grieved the loss of the real Derby yesterday. I relived some memories and thought of my own time in Kentucky.
It was 1982. There was no super horse on the horizon. The Derby was wide open and I got the assignment to cover the big event for a fledgling thoroughbred magazine based in Northern California. With full press credentials, my trusty portable tape recorder, and a 35mm camera in tow, I headed to Louisville and emersed myself in the week-long fantasy world that encompasses each Derby. An experienced Bay Area journalist showed me the ropes my first few days and I managed to take full advantage of everything my credentials would allow. I went to fancy parties. I eavesdropped on famous journalists and their conversations. I snapped pictures and I interviewed the human participants of the '82 Derby. I visited some of the horses in their stalls in the morning and watched the daily races at Churchill to monitor the track condition.
On the morning of the Derby, I arrived close to 5a.m. both to secure a parking place and to visit the backside (stable area) to see if there were any developments overnight. By 6:30, with the morning workouts complete, I walked on the track from the backside to frontside, and then took the elevator to the press box. The press, an international contingent, are treated very well. My credentials were the ticket to meals and viewing privileges. As a working journalist among hundreds, it was easy to blend in and go about my business without hindrance or question. It was all a dream come true.
By late afternoon, with the crowds gone and the press conferences over, I rambled over to the stable area and found the winning trainer that year, Eddie Gregson (Gato del Soul, the horse) at his barn alone. He'd spent some time in Northern California as a young trainer and was most hospitable when I identified myself and a correspondent for The Northern California Thoroughbred magazine. Eddie told me his story, his history the latest chapter of which had been written only a couple of hours
earlier. About halfway through the interview, Eddie grabbed two plastic Kentucky Derby glasses and poured us each a glass of champagne. Never, in my wildest fantasy would I have dreamed of sipping champagne with the winning trainer while his newly crowned champion munched alfalfa nearby. Unforgettable. Eddie fell on hard times in the years that followed. He ultimately took his own life probably the result of some personal demons unknown to most. But that day he hit the top of the mountain, even if for only a short time. Every Derby day I look at that little plastic cup. It's splintered now and the horse graphic is blurred. But the memory, like the Derby, will survive.
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