Post-Derby Blimp

"Hello, MUFON? I saw this UFO yesterday flying really low over my house. It was sort of sausage-shaped, dark gray, and made an ear-splittingly loud grinding sound that upset all my dogs. Yeah, and it said "Good Year" on the side. Hello? ......hello?"

I suppose it was blimping its way back to wherever it comes from - Blimp, Inc. Central HQ - after the events of the Derby wound down. But I surprised it was cruising at such a low altitude; good thing there are no tall buildings around these parts.

Horse Sense

The mathematical gymnastics involved in picking horses in a race is a bit too much like astrology for me. Some people say it's the horse that matters; others maintain it's all about the jockey. Still others make their decision based on the trainer, while some even place the most stock in the horse's lineage. The data on a racing form is a complicated web of interconnected checks and balances on a horse's viability, and interpreting it can be a headache. Just when you think you've picked a winner, you then notice how poorly it fared in the statistics on its most recent other races.

And in the final analysis, what makes or breaks a winner is often up to factors that aren't even reflected in a handicapper's analysis: the quality of the track, the horse's starting position, and unpredicable elements of chance like whether the jockey or the horse gets a stomach-ache or a muscle cramp just before post time. The way the soil is arranged in one specific spot on the track could result in a slight misstep by a horse that is just enough to make it lose its lead. Nature and physics are filled with almost infinite variables, and you could go mad trying to second-guess them all like Ace Rothstein in Casino.

Sometimes, the best thing to do is just throw up your hands, and throw a random dart at the field. After all, even leaving it to randomity, your odds are far better in a horse race than at, say, poker. There's only a few horses, and no matter what, three of them are going to win, place, and show. I always bet on the underdog and the long shot, because even a stopped clock is right twice a day and if that nag does defy the odds and come in, you're in the money. I also like to pick one that isn't the favorite, but is a close contender. Winning a race with the favorite is a real drag for everyone involved because you don't make any serious money; unless you just like to brag about having won. Me, I like the folding green, the shekels, the scratch, the long dough. (And you're gonna need it after the overpriced mint juleps at Churchill Downs that use Early Times whiskey, which technically isn't even a bourbon.)

But more often than not, I'll select horses just because I find personal relevance in their nomenclature. I like "Decisive Moment" (pictured above) because I feel like the whole world is experiencing one as we speak, plus there have been more than a few story-arc-changing decisive moments in my own personal life in the last several months. Picking a horse for the Downardian symbolism in its name is no sillier than pretending to have done the calculus required to figure all the angles of the mathematical maze presented in any given race. Most guys scoul at their racing form intently with a look of deep cogitation, pretending they know what they're doing, then announce their choice as if it's come about from precision juggling of hundreds of factors in their mind.

They're bluffing.

Just pick a horse and hope you win, Jack. Have some fun with it. This isn't like putting a man on the moon or electing a President. (Then again, many people seem to put more effort and research into their Derby pick than they do their Presidential election pick.) I won the Derby last year and the year before, and I don't even claim to know a thing about handicapping, except basic horse sense.

A True Mint Julep

A repeat from an entry on my bartending blog Transmissions from Agent J at last year's Derby season:


To paraphrase Mark Twain, everybody talks about the Mint Julep but nobody ever does anything about it.

I recently read some magazine article - can't remember where now - that talked about how played-out, overrated, and overhyped the Mint Julep is. They talked to some bartender who said she rarely is ever called upon to make one, except by the occasional rube tourist at Derby time. The article also stated that although people go through the motions of having Mint Juleps for Derby, few people actually like them and they toss them aside after a few token sips for tradition's sake.

I posit that the reason these people feel this way about the Mint Julep is because they've never actually had one prepared properly. Hint: it doesn't come from a pre-made bottle, it doesn't come from a store-bought syrup, and it doesn't come from a mix. That this goes without saying should go without saying.

If you really want to do it right, follow the poetic instructions of General Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr. to the absolute letter. Failing that, here's my simple solution that doesn't involve simple syrup:

Granulated sugar
Powdered sugar
Fresh mint leaves
Finely crushed ice
Bourbon

Muddle one pinch of mint with the granulated sugar in a metal Julep cup. Some will tell you to just gently bruise it and not pulverize it, but I say go nuts and pound the hell out of it. The granulated sugar will help give you something to grind against.

Fill the cup to the top with finely crushed ice, fine as a Sno-Cone. Pour bourbon almost to the top, then add your second pinch of mint. It's your second pinch, that will garnish the top, that you want to just mildly bruise and not smush into pieces. Then dust the top generously with powdered sugar.

Those with bourbon-sensitive palates should note that a proper Julep, contrary to how it's commonly fixed, is essentially bourbon with a little mint and a little sugar, NOT mint and sugar with a little bourbon. If you prefer bourbon-based drinks in which you can't taste the bourbon, you might consider the likelihood that bourbon-based drinks are not for you.

Also note that a metal cup is a must - preferably a genuine Julep Cup intended for this purpose, and if it's an antique one (see image of mine above), all the better. If you're doing it in a container made of glass or plastic, don't even bother. Just have a Gin Rickey instead or something.

Alternate versions: if you're dead set on having a Mint Julep even though you don't like bourbon, may I recommend cutting the bourbon somewhat with either Barenjager (my first choice) or Southern Comfort. I suppose eliminating the bourbon entirely in favor of these beverages is permissible - what the hell, it's your drink, buddy - but the thought of it makes the purist in me all fremdschämen.

Hamburg Place Horse Cemetery

Once upon a time, the site where the sprawling Lexington strip mall known alternately as Hamburg Pavilion and Hamburg Place now occupies was one of Kentucky's most beautiful horse farms.


The decision to cleave the farm in two to allow I-75 to be constructed was hotly contested and controversial at the time, but the public was assured this was only a minor marring of the farm's beauty. Then when it was decided to bulldoze half of it to build lots of shopping centers on the edge of a city that already couldn't support its own failing shopping malls, further controversy and arguing ensued. But in the end, commerce won out, as it always does.



If that sounds cynical, it is. But let me also say that I do love shopping at Hamburg, and always make a beeline for it when I'm in Lex-town. I especially never miss a chance to visit Half Price Books and the butterburgers at Culver's.

And next time you're here, watch for this cemetery on Sir Barton Way that conjures up memories the glory days of the Fayette County horse industry. That is, if you can forget that you're standing in the back parking lot of a Lowe's and a Wal-Mart.



Of all the horses interred here, Nancy Hanks gets the most deluxe marker, with a lovely statue. Named after Abraham Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks never ran in a Derby but did break a world's record for trotting a mile in 2 minutes and 4 seconds, which was a major feat in 1892.

It's John Madden himself, founder of the farm, that gets the fanciest treatment, though. Contrary to popular belief, this is not Madden's grave, it's just a tribute. He's actually buried in Cavalry Cemetery.

Weirdest Derby Horse Names?

Someone at the Huffington Post posted a silly article entitled "The 11 Weirdest Names to Win the Derby". Unfortunately, it must have been written by a child or a profoundly uneducated person, since there's utterly NOTHING weird about any of these names.

What's weird about Pleasant Colony? Or Swale (the word refers to swamplike low-lying wetlands)? Chateaugay is a city in New York. And Giacomo is the Italian equivalent of "James" and is one of the most common names in Italy. And Thunder Gulch? Pensive? Come on. It takes a small and sheltered mind indeed to find these names weird.

The writer also seems unaware that many racehorses are named by combining elements from each parent's names, thus the offspring of Alydar and Bel Sheba was dubbed Alysheba. If Huffpo thinks that's weird, they should check out purebred cat shows, whose entrants have names like GP Kaylee's Midnight Ryder of Kaybill and GP Skinzin Queen Nefertiti of True Zue.

If I had to pick the weirdest of the Derby Horse names, I'd probably select 1916's George Smith (pictured), mainly because it's so glaringly normal amidst a sea of abstract equine nomenclature.

Administrative Holiday

It's that day again - "where does the time go?", you might well ask.

Of course, just what the meaning of this day depends on the beholder. Here in the noble city of Louisville, this is Oaks Day, which means it's Churchill Downs' annual Grade I stakes race for three-year-old Thoroughbred fillies. But more importantly, it means an excuse to have a pre-Derby celebration and start drinkin' early. Many workplaces and even schools take off for Oaks Day, but no one declares that the holiday is explicitly because of the Oaks, of course - most simply say it is an "administrative holiday."

For others, April 30 means Walpurgis Night (Walpurgisnacht). It's a traditional religious holiday of pre-Christian origin, celebrated by Christian as well as non-Christian communities, past the stroke of midnight and through "The Door Into Summer" - May Day, the beginning of the new season. It's probably the one day of the year that Catholics, pagans, witches, Satanists, and anarchists all almost see eye-to-eye.

Walpurgisnacht is named for Saint Walpurga. The earliest representation of Walpurga, from the early 11th century, depicts her holding stylized stalks of grain. The grain attribute has been interpreted as identifying Walpurga as a Christianized protectress of the grain, the Grain Mother. Farmers fashioned her image in a corn dolly at harvest time, and from this tradition also comes the real origin of the Scarecrow figure in the fields - scaring birds was never its original intention.

Horse Industry Leaving KY?

I've received a scary booklet via snail-mail, from the Kentucky Equine Education Project. It says:

Due to expanded gaming, racetracks in Indiana, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Florida, Louisiana and other states have substantially increased their race purses. As a result, owners, trainers, horses and the jobs that are associated with them are leaving. It has left Kentucky's racing industry struggling for its life. Race days have been cancelled and Kentucky racetracks are on the verge of closing. Kentucky horse racing, the home of the Derby, is on the verge of meltdown.

Politicians in Frankfort have brushed this problem under the table for years, while jobs and tax dollars have left for other states. If Frankfort doesn't fix the problem soon, Kentucky will lose its signature industry.

Hyperbole? Maybe.

But maybe not. There's more than a handful of grains of truth to what they're saying, as evidenced by recent mainstream news stories about Turfway Park canceling some Monday cards, Recurring rumors of Ellis Park closing down, Churchill Downs struggling for entries, and thehorse.com's report about Keeneland's "downward spiral".

PETA Protests Kentucky Derby with 256 Headstones

Those kooks at PETA were at it again during Derby, erecting 256 headstones at the Kentucky Derby in some sort of misguided protest about the ethical treatment of race horses.

"Bodies may not be buried at Churchill Downs, but with so many horses having drawn their last breath there after having been run to death, it might as well be a cemetery. And for two days it will be, when PETA erects 265 headstones outside the racetrack this week.

Why 265, you ask? We are including 263 headstones to represent the horses who have died on the track since last year's Kentucky Derby and whose names we know, one headstone for the approximately 832 other horses who have died but whose names are not known—because racetracks are so bad at reporting breakdowns and deaths—and one headstone for the approximately 12,000 thoroughbreds who are sent off to slaughter each year."

PETA Wants Big Brown Castrated

Those wacky kids at PETA are at it again.

They're calling for Kentucky Derby winner Big Brown to be castrated, against the wishes of the horse's owners, Michael Iavarone and Richard Schiavo, who are preparing to make him a high priced stud sire at Three Chimneys Farm. Their thinking, as far as I can tell, is that any offspring of Big Brown may be more likely to have the same kind of accidental injury as his parent. (If that logic seems fuzzy, remember that PETA is the same organization who handed out leaflets to little children that said "Your Mommy Kills Animals".)

There's been no word as far as I know that Iavarone and Schiavo are taking PETA's protest seriously. Myself, as a card-carrying member of the Kentucky-centric Old Order of Transylvanian Gentlemen, I can't support anyone who calls for the end of racetrack betting, nor anyone who disparages the holy name of Colonel Harlan Sanders.

The USA Today story is here.