My Old Kentucky Derby

When you grow up in a town famous for one specific thing, that thing becomes a part of you. There’s no choice involved; you inherit it like green eyes from your mother or black humor from your dad.  So it’s been with Louisville, the Kentucky Derby, and me. I’ve only been to the Derby twice (infield, 1980’s, pretty gross), and I haven’t lived in Louisville for twenty-five years. Still, my sleeping allegiance to my hometown rouses regularly, especially as April rounds the bend into May. Just yesterday, I heard “Ken Tucker” announced on the radio, and my ears pricked like the Black Stallion’s to Alec’s whistle. I thought I’d heard “Kentucky.” It turned out to be Terry Gross introducing Fresh Air’s music critic.

The Derby is now just a week away. Stories are cropping up in the national news about favorite horses and trainers. These reports cause a spike in the annual graph of my homesickness. Each February I forsake Groundhog Day, preferring to wait for the true harbinger of Spring: Bob Baffert. I watch for his silver hair and sunglasses to emerge from the newspapers at the coffee shop. There’s no mistaking him or the twin spires reflected in his lenses. 

The funny thing is, my family didn’t care much for the Derby when I was growing up. We eschewed the “Derby fever” that overtakes Louisville starting in early April. My parents immigrated to Kentucky from North Carolina and Pennsylvania; horses are not in their blood. I imagine even true followers of thoroughbred racing must grow weary of the long-lead up to the big race. Starting in the 1970s, anyone with a harebrained idea and enough backers could add a new event to the expanding Derby Festival. After watching the classic steamboat race featuring the Belle of Louisville for example, fans can dart over to Slugger Field for the “Run for the Rosé.” This competition, now in its thirty-second year, features restaurant servers speed-walking while holding trays of sloshing wine glasses. There’s a dizzying array of Derby-themed events, from air shows to craft fairs.

My family would tune into the Derby right as the horses were being loaded into the gate. At the time, it seemed like the right dose of festivity. When I was in high school, my family also took a brief interest in the Derby’s hot air balloon race because my uncle, an executive at Porter Paints, piloted the company balloon. Sometimes the wind would blow the race over our neighborhood. My brothers and I would run down the street waving frantically at the giant paint can floating high above our heads. “Uncle John!!” we’d yell with equal parts pride and concern. Burned into our brains was the image of his fingers, which had lost several knuckles to to the inflating fan.

It was the Derby’s artifacts more than the horses that captured my imagination as a kid. Our next-door neighbors, whom I idolized, owned commemorative posters and drinking glasses etched with the name of every winning horse in a tiny five-point font. Stars distinguished the Triple Crown winners. At Bashford Manor Mall, I’d scrutinize the gallery of famous thoroughbreds that encircled the bleak, sunken TV lounge. The sepia-print horses hovered like gods above the sorry ship of smoking, slouching mortals who watched football games while their wives shopped.  And to this day, I love the elegant yet manly silver julep cup.

Louisville, like many mid-sized American cities, suffers from an inferiority complex. Every year, the Derby offers a cigarette break from self-doubt, a downward dog between campaigns to prove its worthiness. If you put Fifth Avenue, the Champs Elysées and the Piazza San Marco together, they couldn’t hold a candle to the dirt track of Churchill Downs at post-time. Because the glamour and invincibility are so fleeting, expats like me pick up where the cameras leave off.  Louisville is part mother to me, but it’s also part younger sister. I may ping on her sweltering summers and suburban sprawl, but I’m the first to defend her from a bully, and to boast of her accomplishments. The city’s come a long way since I lived there. It’s thriving, in fact, and hardly needs my protective services. But it’s not a valve I can turn off.  That’s how it is with family.