For five weeks each spring, horse racing captures America’s attention with its fabled Triple Crown series. Three races, featuring the best three old horses in the world, comprise racing’s most relevant annual event. Besides their inclusion under the Triple Crown umbrella, however, the similarities between the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont end. Each race, venue, atmosphere, fan base, and weekend of championship racing is vastly different. We at Thorobros are fortunate enough to be attending all three 2016 Triple Crown weekends. And with media credentials in hand, we intend to cover every aspect and experience that these major racing weekends have to offer. Our goal? To capture and summarize what makes each of these events unique through our own experiences and war stories. By immersing ourselves in the Triple Crown series, we hope to gain insight into what makes this five week period—and its three jewels—special, determine what are the strengths and weaknesses of each leg, and identify ideas and angles for further unifying and strengthening the grand prize of our sport. It is our Tales from the Crown series, and we hope you enjoy.
Sure, it is a three race series, but make no mistake about which weekend is the headliner. The Derby is America’s most famous and popular race. It attracts the largest crowd, field of horses, and television ratings. Yet despite its perceived success over the past ten years, Churchill and the Derby have endured some PR hits. From an alleged failure to accommodate Perry Martin’s mother, to a denial of Ron Turcotte’s request for a handicap parking pass, boycotts over take out rates, and culminating with Fox Hill Farm’s rant for lack of hospitality—Churchill has a reputation of caring more about corporate dollars than racing and its customers. So with that backdrop and reputation in mind, we focused our time at the Twin Spires on determining whether Southern Hospitality was indeed dead in Louisville during the first Saturday in May. Our observations from weekend 142 are below.
Kentuckians Make the Difference: Regardless of what Churchill does and does not do during Derby week, the hospitality of locals cannot be questioned. It started with our hosts for the weekend, Matt and Mary Beth, who not only opened their home to “friends of friends”, but made sure they had plenty of bourbons to sample and home grown mint for juleps. Even the locals around the track, looking to monetize the weekend, go an extra mile. Our friends and family have been parking with Kenny on Queen Ave for nearly 20 years. Sporting a “Derby Deeds, Done Cheap” t-shirt, Kenny has not only parked our cars, but provided post race brats and bud heavies, run taxi for friends at a bachelorette party, and taken one Thorobros’ car, on two separate occasions, to get repair work done while we were at the races (the product of some rough trips to Louisville). 20 minutes talking to this guy and you can’t help but think, “man, I love this town.” So much of the atmosphere and traditions which make the Kentucky Derby great come from the locals who are so excited to share their world with the visitors. This is something Belmont and Pimlico can never match.
Thurby: Belmont and Pimlico have finally started to build up the Friday before their signature races, but they are still way behind the Kentucky Oaks. Yet, Churchill has again upped the ante by creating and promoting a surging Thursday at the races. Dubbed “Thurby,” the day is designed for locals looking to avoid the expenses of Friday and Saturday. This marked my first Thurby. We were blown away by the crowd, which to us seemed larger and more festive than anything we’ve seen at the CD hosted Breeders’ Cups. The racing itself was sub par at best—a two year stakes and a four horse field comprised half of the late pick 4—but the buzz and excitement were something I never thought possible at a racetrack on a Thursday.
There is a ton of potential with Thurby. But, if this day is meant to be Kentucky’s day at the races, we would like to see more efforts around that theme—more restricted KY races, KY food fest at the track, bourbon tastings, etc. Also, to ultimately get more visitors to the track on Thursday, there needs to be a better effort to better the racing product.
The Racing: So, the Derby may have chalked out this year. But that race aside, the stakes race action on both Friday and Saturday was excellent and yielded some large payouts. Thanks to Auntie Joy, Catalina Red and Camelot Kitten, we were dancing in aisles of the 300 section seemingly all weekend. The great betting races, however, may have come at the expense of star power. Aside from Tepin, the Oaks and Derby undercards lacked the racing stars we’ve seen in the past—Honor Code and Bayern last year, Wise Dan two years ago. However, that may very well be the product of less star studded horses in training than anything else. We’ll wait and see how the star power of the Derby weekend stakes compares to that on the Belmont Mega-card.
That said, there were still plenty of great horses running on both days. We enjoyed walking around the quiet barn area Thursday—letting the Thurby crowd die down—and seeing horses like Tourist, Harmonize, Stonetastic, and Curliana.
Celebrities: Speaking of star power, the Derby is head and shoulders above its Triple Crown brethren in the human star power it attracts. We saw John Voigt predictably pick Oscar Nominated as his derby winner. And we stood within an arm’s distance of Kate Upton as she petted a lead pony in the winner’s circle. While maybe not the best means for growing racing, the Derby’s association with the brightest stars in the world does help change racing’s sometimes seedy perception. We especially like the Oak’s use of Kate Upton’s star power—an apparent burgeoning racing ambassador. She made several appearances throughout the day, including a winner’s circle presentation which was also tied to a charitable effort. We have commented before on this blog that racing seemingly lacks behind other major sports in its charitable efforts, so it was nice to see Oaks Day make such a push with a huge star like Upton.
Churchill’s Hospitality: And finally we are left with the million dollar question—did Churchill show its fans the cold shoulder? From our vantage point, the answer was a resounding no. First, the Churchill staff was excellent, and the most well prepared we’ve ever seen them. Churchill does it’s best to create random new areas each Derby. With separate sky terraces and a paddock that prevents easy maneuvering–walking around the grounds looking for a newly invented section can be a nightmare. Yet the staff was all armed with updated maps and most of them (there were a few duds), were willing and capable of providing directions.
Churchill’s media department was also extremely impressive. The media room was attentive to the needs of the press, the wireless internet ran smoothly, and reserved seating in section 322 for press was a fantastic amenity.
The most impressive act of all though, likely went unnoticed by most. We had the opportunity to provide guest handicapper services for Thursday’s Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders’ Association (TOBA) new owners seminar. Although TOBA had not held a seminar at Churchill in nine years, Churchill rolled out the red carpet for these prospective new owners. Attendees were hosted in the brand new Director’s Room, featuring comfy couches, a bar, several flat screen TV’s, and a large private patio overlooking the paddock. Churchill also footed the bar tab for the event, providing guests with an open bar all day long—something TOBA representatives informed us was unprecedented by other tracks at these events.
After the feature race on Thursday, Churchill Downs President Kevin Flannery brought the winning connections into the Director’s Room to participate in a champagne toast with the new owners’ seminar attendees. This was not something TOBA requested or was even aware of, but apparently was of Flannery’s own devise. Flannery encouraged seminar attendees to “get in the game” and to dream big, in hopes of someday toasting their own victories in the Director’s Room. It was a small gesture, but one that for me quickly dispelled Churchill’s reputation of not caring about the sport of racing. Here was the President of Churchill, taking time on his busiest weekend of the year, to toast not huge corporate sponsors, but people considering ownership even at the smallest of levels. Flannery’s gesture was the highlight of our Derby weekend (yes, hitting the triple with Camelot Kitten was fun too) as it showed us that Churchill Downs still valued all racing fans.
On to Baltimore!
Runkle and Campo administered the equivalent of an extreme makeover adjusting the horse s nutrition, grooming, training intervals, even his shoes and it was as if a new animal emerged. Pleasant Colony put muscle on his tall frame (almost 17 hands high), improving both his endurance and durability. In a strikingly short time the stable had extracted greatness out of mere potential. So much so that Campo put down a 25 1 early bet on his new horse to win the 81 Kentucky Derby.