My first Kentucky Derby was watching Smarty Jones win from the roof of Churchill with two secret service snipers. My second was seeing Big Brown cruise home from the Press Box.
My third, this year: from the winner’s circle and then chasing jockeys through the tunnel, the paddock, and into the jock’s room.
Jockeys are a unique bunch: they spend 8 to 10 hours a day, some of them seven days a week, competing up to 10 times a day with the same group of guys they play ping-pong with in their downtime.
Like any locker room full of professional athletes, things are seen and heard that the Average Joe never gets to experience.
And today was no exception. While waiting for several Derby riders, I saw a former Derby winner (think ’08) eating a giant plate of food still fully dressed and covered with mud, listen in to scoop about how some guys really felt about their Derby mounts, and watch Joe Talamo and Mike Smith film scenes for the season finale of “Jockeys“.
But there were three fantastic moments that will last with me forever…
#1: Calvin Borel running up the escalator, hootin’ and hollerin’, and jumping into the arms of five of the best jocks in the country and kissing every single of member of the Churchill jock’s room – and then still making it in time for a 12th race commitment he didn’t have to keep
#2: Shane Borel, nephew and valet for Calvin, who I’ve known since clocking horses here in ’03, coming upstairs post-Derby with the biggest grin ever and giving me a hug that left me covered in winner’s circle dirt
#3: The jockey colony watching replays of the Kentucky Derby, where a group of the younger guys were seeing the aerial shot for the umpteenth time, and one of them says, “when are we all going to learn to block the rail – we’re all just giving him these races!”
This sport is filled with big animals, big money, and big personalities. But it’s the small moments that make it all worth wile.
Great stuff Molly!