8601200606
DETROIT FREE PRESS
860504
Sunday, May 04, 1986
METRO FINAL
1D
MITCH ALBOM
SEE ALSO STATE EDITION
Copyright (c) 1986, Detroit Free Press
DERBY HORSES WEREN'T NEARLY THIS BEASTLY
LOUISVILLE -- The beasts were pawing at the gates.
"START THEM UP!" someone screamed.
"WOOOH!" screamed someone else.
Only the gates stood between them and mad glory. The beasts were restless.
The beasts wanted to run.
"IT'S TIIIIME!" someone screamed.
"DO IT!" screamed someone else.
A cop checked his watch. There were about 75 cops there, billy clubs by
their sides, safe on the other side of the gates, away from these wild
animals. The cop with the watch looked up. He nodded.
The locks were lifted. The gates swung open. And the beasts charged toward
the track. They were carrying sleeping bags and blankets. Some had been out
there for hours, some all night long, sleeping on the sidewalk just a few feet
from the white- spired grandeur of Churchill Downs race track -- where the
Kentucky Derby would be run that afternoon for the 112th straight time.
These were human beasts. And the worst kind. The kind without tickets.
They had begun camping out at 6 p.m. the night before. They had come to
claim the last spot available: the infield. The Churchill Downs infield.
Twenty dollars gets you a section of grass there as big as your rear end,
where you can sit all day and bake in the sun and shower with beer. It's the
only way in here for the regular guy who can't pony up $127.50 for a lousy
reserved seat.
So they came -- thousands of them. They shivered through the night. And
now their faces were twisted, their eyes droopy, their hair matted, their
breath stale with sleep and booze. But there was no time for that. It was 8
a.m., Derby Day, the gates had been opened, and so they were sprinting like
crazed beasts toward the tunnel that went under the track and spilled onto the
infield grass, sprinting for the best spots before someone else got them. And
I started to sprint with them.
I don't know why. It was just a sudden mass frenzy, like running with the
bulls through the streets of Pamplona. Only here I was racing against two
long-haired bikers with shades and folding chairs and a cooler.
"Get the quarter pole spot!" yelled one.
"Go left outta the tunnel!" yelled the other.
We were breathing hard, locked in a desperate 400-yard dash. Suddenly it
was all that mattered. That spot. It was me or them. Survival of the fastest.
Our legs pumped. It was early morning. The horses were somewhere in their
stables. The debutantes were home, picking out their Derby Day outfits. The
Kentucky Colonels were enjoying their breakfasts before coming out to the
track.
And there we were, two bikers, one journalist, charging down the concrete,
panting and sweating like the very beasts we had come to bet on. . . .
How exactly I ended up in the middle of this deranged race is fuzzy. A
blur. There was something about a strip joint and a waitress and a street
party at 4 a.m., and mint juleps and motor homes and a lady who told me the
best way to sneak whiskey into the Derby was to hide a flask inside a loaf of
bread, because "they never look there."
I'm not sure how this all fits together, even now. But I figure that's one
of the side effects of the depraved illness they call Derby Fever; a euphemism
for 48 hours of decadent, liquor-soaked behavior that gets ugly every few
hours, like clockwork.
You might as well know right off that there are two sides to this most
famous of horse races. What you see on TV -- the lime green knickers, the hoop
skirts, Millionaires Row, the Derby breakfasts, the box seats, the cultured
talk about the fine breeding of horse No. 3 -- all that is one side.
Then there's the other side. Where the real beasts perform.
I was on that side Saturday morning. And the bikers were a step ahead of me
. . .
But wait. Let's back up two days. The idea here was to witness the Derby
from the street up. Leave the horse details to our racing writer and just go
for the color. So, naturally, when we blew into Louisville in the wee hours of
Thursday morning ("we" being myself and Jimmy S., a friend who likes to
accompany me on these sick little jaunts) we asked the cab driver to
immediately recommended an action spot. He suggested a club called the Green
Light Lounge.
Never ask a cab driver. The Green Light Lounge -- whose sign read "DERBY
FANS: CHECK OUT OUR FILLIES!" -- proved to be a seedy little strip joint that
charges you a dollar to walk in the door. You get 30 seconds for your eyes to
adjust to the dark, and then the female dancers saddle up alongside you.
"Buy me a ticket?" said a brunette in a red dress cut down to the
imagination.
"Ticket to what?" I said.
"That's how we work it here," she said. "You buy me a ticket, I can sit
with you."
"How much is a ticket?" I asked.
"They start at 12 dollars," she said.
Jimmy and I exchanged glances. We figured neither of our bosses would mind
that little item on our expense accounts, considering the information we could
get. Right, boss? We bought the ticket. She sat down.
In five minutes we learned more about Derby week than was contained in all
those colorful books they stuff in your media packet. Nancy (that was the name
she gave us) said she worked in a nursing home in eastern Kentucky most of
the year, but always came to Louisville during Derby Week. Said she could
clear $800 for five nights worth of smiling and dancing and wearing skimpy
dresses.
"I get all kinds," she said, lighting up a cigaret, "high rollers,
motorcycle guys. Friday night before the Derby is the busiest. It's nonstop.
The bar stays open until 6 a.m. This is an unbelievable week."
Nancy said tickets to sit with her -- and only sit with her -- ran up to
$50 a pop, depending on how much the Derby tourists felt like spending. I
asked her how many minutes you got for 12 bucks.
She looked at her watch. "You're on overtime now, sweetheart," she said.
Suffice it to say it was a late night. But in the interest of a fair
picture, we hit the track early on Friday morning. And I mean early. Like
6:30 a.m. I don't know why horsemen insist on getting up before the sun. Maybe
because it keeps reporters from asking too many questions, as most of them are
asleep standing up.
Anyhow, it was worth seeing, because the difference between Churchill
Downs at sunrise and Churchill Downs in the middle of the fifth race is like
the difference between Wisconsin and Beirut. In the morning hours, the horses
graze quietly while the trainers talk softly about their chances. You hear the
occasional thundering of hooves around the track. And then it's quiet again.
It's here, along the backstretch, where writers fall in love with horse
racing. It's in the bleachers where they come to loathe it.
When the gates open, the whole scene changes. Especially on Derby Weekend.
The entire range of human condition comes through these doors, from the
down-and-out war vet in a wheelchair to Don Johnson of "Miami Vice." That's
part of what the Derby is about, they brag. Everybody gets a peek. Everybody
gets to hunker down a wager on Snow Chief or Badger Land, and to spend five
or six hours in Derby glory.
They just don't all spend it the same way.
Friday went by quickly. The afternoon was the running of the Kentucky Oaks,
the filly version of the Derby. It was a prelude of things to come. Churchill
Downs was packed. People set up beach chairs in front of the building-sized
tote board that flashes the odds. They sat there all day, watching numbers
change. They never saw a horse. And they were still happy.
That's because Churchill Downs is less a race track than a stage on Derby
weekend. A place for the busted to stare at the loaded. Hats. Hats are big at
Derby time. Bowlers and Stetsons and big round things with flowers and
ribbons and pink veils hanging down.
That's what I remember most. And girls hawking mint juleps like they
hawk programs at Tiger Stadium. And people waiting in line for the bathrooms,
for water fountains, for wagers. Every hotel room in Louisville was gone.
Every decent restaurant was running double shifts. Rates were triple on
everything. The locals were charging up to $30 for desperate visitors to sleep
on their porches. If you behaved yourself, you might get to use the bathroom.
Jimmy S. and I ate that night at some rib joint that boasted five video
screens. There were horseshoes on the walls. And a two-hour wait. When a
table cleared people who'd been standing began to fight over the empty chairs.
A guy who said his name was Mister Wonderful got in a tug of war with a young
woman. "This chair stays here," he growled. I had a lousy feeling about the
night after that.
Still, nothing, at least nothing short of a full scale nuclear alert, could
have prepared me for the streets outside Churchill Downs late Friday night.
How do you describe it? It was as if MTV, Hells Angels, and "The Rocky Horror
Picture Show" had let out onto Central Avenue and multiplied by a thousand.
Teenage kids staggering on top of one another. Beer cans rolling across the
street. Old men rocking on their porches with shotguns under blankets. An
auto body shop with a crap game being run inside. And screams. Screams that
rose like sudden smoke, rose out of nowhere, people just screaming to a
crescendo, then stopping. In the daylight it would have been weird. In the
darkness of 2 a.m. it was a signal to head for cover.
We were moving quickly back to the car when we passed a stocky cop from
the Louisville sheriff's office.
"Any trouble yet, officer?" I asked him.
"Nah," he said, slapping his night stick. "Just some fighters, and some
boys trying to sell that Mary Jane You-Wanna stuff. Nuthin' too bad."
Just then a buddy of his came up and slapped the cop on the back. "HEY YOU
REDNECK!" the buddy yelled. "WHICH WAY TO FAIRYTOWN?"
"Let's get out of here," I said to Jimmy. He didn't argue.
On our way to the car we passed the now-locked entrance to the general
admission infield section. It was still six hours away from opening but
already dozens of people were tucked into sleeping bags against the bars,
trying to keep warm.
"I been here six straight years," said a guy from Florida. "I ain't missing
this one." Next to him were four college roommates with three cases of
Budweiser. Before the night would end, there would be several arrests and more
than one ambulance visit. Nothing unusual, as the cop put it.
Across the street from the gate was an all-night drugstore. It had a grill
going, and the sizzle of sausage mixed with cigar-choked conversation. Under
normal conditions, you wouldn't set foot in the place. Tonight it was
paradise. People nursed their coffee and pie, staying warm and safe for a few
extra minutes until the waitress booted them. It was, after all, a long way
until 8 a.m.
Which sort of brings us back to where we began this weird tale, the
footrace against the bikers. Let's just call it a draw. The three of us burst
out of the tunnel and into the infield and realized, panting, that there was
no big rush. The place was massive.
As the hours went by it filled up. Kids in football shirts. Old men in caps
and jackets. There were Port-O-Lets and betting windows and refreshment stands
out there. The drinking began almost immediately.
"Get started now," hollered some geek in a rose hat. "Gonna be a long day."
That was the truth. Three hours passed before the first race of the day. By
that point, the infield was half-filled and mostly crazed. Girls had stripped
down to bathing suits. Guys had binoculars. Cassette players were blasting.
Beer and whisky were going down throats at a record pace. Bodies were
crouched over racing forms, and wherever you stepped, you just missed
somebody's stomach.
But that wasn't the weird part. The weird part was when the races started,
and for the rest of the afternoon, the horses raced around all this mutant
madness. It was like being in a demilitarized zone on the 50-yard line of a
Cowboys-Redskins game.
To keep from going completely insane, I kept switching locations. I
stopped by the paddock, where they bring the horses before the races. By
mid-afternoon, people were 10 deep all around, which can get the horses pretty
spooked, especially when some drunken fool screams "AWW RIIIGHT!" directly
into their ears. Last year, something like that happened, and a horse bridled
and broke into a sweat. "Ruined him for the race," said an observer.
Then there was the Paddock Lounge, which is a few hundred dollars and
several light years away from the infield. Here -- as in the other Churchill
Downs restaurants -- were white shoes beneath white slacks beneath a white
sports jacket and a white hat. Here were women with shoulder pads beneath
their silk dresses and tall men who looked like they should be on a fried
chicken bucket, flagging down waitresses and saying, "How 'bout a few of
those mint juleps, little darlin'?"
This was the glitter and romance they write about. The exclusive corporate
booths were not far away. A hunch bet over here was a year's income for some
of the infield types.
"I've got 10 grand on Badger Land . . . " said some bughead with a
polka-dot ascot.
"It's in the breeding . . . " said his silver-haired partner.
The air smelled of fine food, Derby pie and money.
By 3 p.m. the infield was a sea of drunken humanity. The whole place seemed
to sway. People were singing, rolling on top of each other. The lines for the
beer were only exceeded by the lines for the Port-O-Lets, both of which were
beyond sanity. It was Woodstock without music. Half-clad bodies waving at
clouds. Tents pitched 20 feet from the betting windows. And no rhyme or
reason to the cast. An old black man studying the racing form sat next to
three teenage girls, whose blanket bordered a motorcycle king with a boom box.
A bare-chested guy watched his wife reach into his wallet.
"Get out of there, woman!" he yelled. "You been in there enough." She took
the money anyhow.
Across the way in the exclusive boxes sat Walter Cronkite and Cornelius
and Marylou Vanderbilt Whitney. I sat there in the infield, with my back to a
fence. Jimmy S. had fallen asleep next to me, and his face was getting
sunburned. I thought about Cronkite. And about the redneck cop. And Mister
Wonderful. And the woman with the loaded bread loaf. I thought about the money
being tossed out on this Derby race, some $13 million. I thought about Nancy
the dancer, and how she was probably on a bus back across the state by now,
with $800 in her pocketbook that she didn't have last week.
The contrasts were too much. The whole thing was too much. There were only
minutes before the big race. The only sensible thing to do, it seemed, was to
head for shelter.
Which is why they invented the press box.
From high above it all, safely inside the working media room, a cup of
coffee to the left, a TV monitor on the right, it was possible to actually get
a grip on this weird and greed- soaked affair. Here were hundreds of thousands
of people, dressed up and drunk out and swollen like peacocks, all there
ostensibly for a two-minute horse race. But come on. That was garbage. Maybe
one in five knew anything about horses. The others either knew high heels or
seersucker suits or how to puncture a beer can with a fountain pen. For them,
this was a party, and the horses were a convenient excuse.
When the trumpets sounded for the Derby race, everybody rose. They joined
in a version of "My Old Kentucky Home," but not too many got the words right.
The horses entered the gate. Then the bell, and they were off. For two minutes
everybody was together, eyes on the track instead of each other. But two
minutes is still only two minutes. And soon the two minutes were over. The
horse named Ferdinand won. An major upset. A 17-1 shot. The lucky winners
waved their tickets and toasted their foresight. The rest ripped up their
stubs, dropped them on the ground and stomped on them as they made a gigantic
cattle run for the exits.
"Well, there you have it . . . " the TV announcers said. That's it for
this year. The Derby was over. The beasts had run again. But I knew better. I
knew most of them were out there in the parking lots. I took a long sip from
my coffee cup. For the moment, I was staying put.
HORSE;RACING;KENTUCKEY DERBY