Memory Lane: Editor Longs For Louisville On Derby Day

(This piece was originally published on the MyFox network of FOX local television station Web sites in 2008.)

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

If March roars in like a lion, does May glide in like a thoroughbred?

It does in Louisville, Ky., where as many as 20 of the world's elite 3-year-old race horses will run for the roses in Saturday's 136th Kentucky Derby, beginning at about 6:20 p.m.

It's known as the most exciting two minutes in sports, and for visiting revelers, it might be. But for those who live in Louisville, the event is the farthest thing from a sprint.

Derby Festival

The Kentucky Derby Festival typically makes its official opening two weeks ahead of race day. Thunder Over Louisville rings in what many regard as a holiday season across the Bluegrass. A day-long military air show calls more than a half-million people to the banks of the Ohio River -- both in Louisville and in southern Indiana -- and is punctuated by a fireworks show at nightfall that is billed as the nation's largest.

Click Here For More Derby Coverage

From there, all manner of events, competitions, concerts, food tastings, parades and parties dot the social calendar around town.

All the while, deep-pocketed horse owners and trainers quietly make their way to Churchill Downs, the Madison Square Garden of racing, to get their magnificent animals prepped for the sport's most famous event. Pre-dawn workouts are a photographer's fave; slow-aperture silhouette prints make a popular postcard, complete with the dew-speckled dirt under the feet of a galloping beast.

Derby Parties

No springtime fortnight is complete without its parties, and Louisville lives up to the expectation. Kentucky is Maker's Mark country, but for Derby season, there's no such thing as an unwelcome bottle or beverage. Quantity seems to be the theme here, even if the cheap label does read Early Times or Kentucky Gentleman.

Follow | Subscribe | Donate

But quality eventually comes into focus on Derby Eve, when A-list celebrities hit the Mint Jubilee downtown and the Barnstable Brown party in the charming Highlands neighborhood.

I lived in the Highlands for four years and have shot the Barnstable event five or six times, including the night a fairly high-profile introduction was made in 2004.

One of my favorite pictures I've ever taken is a profile-view of one of the best actors of all-time, Dennis Hopper. I looked at it so frequently that I remember the out-of-focus faces in the background.

So when I was watching HBO's "Entourage" in the summer of 2006, I noticed a familiar face in the form of an extra, a blonde man conversing with a co-worker in Ari Gold's office. I checked my files and sure enough, it was a celebrity photographer shooting Hopper from the other side of him.

Indeed, this was Louisville native Larry Birkhead long before he was known as, well, Larry Birkhead. And this was the night he met Anna Nicole Smith, one of the favorites for several years among the hundreds of stargazers who would gather outside the Highlands home.

The Barnstable Brown event is thrown by sisters known better as the Doublemint twins from those chewing-gum commercials years ago. They throw the biggest party on the circuit, a black-tie affair that draws the NFL's Manning family, Tom Brady, Jerry O'Connell and Rebecca Romijn, Nick Lachey and Kid Rock, among many others.

Late Night

The Mint Jubilee and Barnstable parties wind down at normal times and TV reporters scramble to hit their 11 p.m. slots. Shortly later, the celebrities make their way out, as the evening for them is just beginning.

Playboy, Maxim and Crown Royal host fairly large to-dos at clubs that roll into the skinny hours of Derby Day. Tight-topped women with new haircuts and manicures angle to meet some of the many athletes in town as average joes look on, hoping this will be the year they can script their own exciting Derby weekend story.

Race Day

The sea of people isn't confined to the infield, where several years ago a TV weatherman from my old station had his report interrupted by a young gal eager to display to a live television audience what was underneath her tank top.

The infield is where college kids go to try to register a blood-alcohol content of .20 before the third race. But in other areas of Churchill Downs, the southern Belles boast their brilliant hats and darling dresses and the gentlemen of quality sport their freshly pressed seersucker suits unworn since the last Derby.

It's 1 p.m. and Churchill is packed with more than 100,000 people. The race is still five hours away. Fifty-thousand more people are expected to add to the mayhem before then.

This is the best event a photographer could ever cover. No one dislikes a cameraman on Derby Day. There are so many layers: The people, the colors, the horses, the jockeys, the vendors, Bob Baffert's snowy-white hair, the paddock, the scenery and the turn. Oh, that turn.

It's one of the most picturesque scenes in sport -- 20 gorgeous horses speeding through that first turn, with Churchill's famous twin spires slicing through the background, a hat atop tens of thousands of screamers below, all hoping they're holding at least one winning ticket.

And when the dust settles, both figurative and literal, the fun for many comes to an end. One ownership family will celebrate a Derby win deep into the night as many revelers try to stay out late as well. But for many others, it's time for bed.

Memory Lane

My most memorable Derby year was in 2004, when I lived in Cincinnati but spent the week working out of Louisville. I got into work on Monday at about 8 a.m., toiled until 6 p.m., came home for a three-hour nap, woke up for dinner, then went out for drinks until 2 a.m. and repeated the process for each of the next few days.

There were some Derby days when I'd done some work for a few hours after the race, then called it a night out of sheer exhaustion.

And then there was the time when I went into a bar at about 2 a.m. after one Derby, and didn't come out until the sun was starting to re-introduce itself. By the time I got to my friend's house, the birds were chirping and the paperboy was delivering his route.

Such a scenario only meant one thing: it was time for a Bloody Mary over a conversation about how to do it better the next year.