Yes I went to the Kentucky Derby twice ... but many, many years ago. I first went when I was in the university. We bought the cheap tickets. I think it was $3.00. Then we went in a tunnel under the race track and came up in the in-field .... along with thousands of other 'poor' folks.
It was a giant party, mostly college students. People brought buckets filled with Kentucky Fried Chicken and plastic garbage cans filled with ice and beer. My naive friends and I went there with sandwiches, Cokes and blankets to sit on.
There were about 12 races that day. The Derby was the ninth or tenth one.
We had positioned ourselves along the back fence so, at least, we would be able to see the horses. The crowd was 30 or 40 people deep at the front fence near the finish line. Thay couldn't see anything except the scoreboards. We could see horses, albeit for less than 10 or 20 seconds of the race!
We could hear the announcer yell, And they're OFF!" The crowd in the stands cheered and people near us all stood up. But nothing was happening. The announcer kept calling off the position of the horses, but nothing was happening in the backfield! Suddenly I started hearing this noise. It was like a roar of thunder, but the roar of the crowd was really covering that sound. The crowd in the in-field started pressing us against the back fence. The roar was getting louder, then it sounded like a thunder - a pounding thunder. Louder! LOUDED! It covered the cheers from the crowd. This was the horses' hooves pounding on the dirt track.
Everyone near us was now crowded against that chainlink fence. There was an eight to ten foot strip of grass between our chain-link fence and the wooden rail fence that bordered the dirt track. I guess that was to protect the horses from the crazy and drunk people in the in-field. The rthunder was really getting loud and I strained to see around the curve for a glimpse of a horse.
Suddenly they were there - right in front of me...their brown color in the May sunshine was so beautiful. But only for ten or twenty seconds and then they were gone. The announcer kept yelling the names for the next 60 seconds while the horses charged for the finish line. But we couldn't see anything. So the people drifted back to their blankets. Some people had radios going with the race being broadcast live to the citizens of Kentucky and Indiana.
That was either in 1964 or 1965. Then I went to the Derby again in the Spring of 1966. I was taking three girls from Texas. That was my first year out of college and also my last year at the Derby.
Later I am going to expand on this story.
Thanks for letting me bring back that memory.
A.J.
