Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Churchill Downs are separated by just 125 miles of southern Indiana countryside and the Ohio River. That's 50 laps around the Speedway, twice as many around Churchill. But the expansive motor racing cathedral, with its signature yard of bricks, and the stately horse racing track, defined by its dignified twin spires now dwarfed by grotesque modernization, are undeniably linked. Many of their most cherished traditions seem rooted in the same values. And each became the standard by which all who compete in their respective sports are judged.
Early Friday morning I drove through Gate 5 on the Churchill Downs backstretch. I motored along, without stopping once, through a maze of horse barns and small auxiliary buildings until I pulled into a parking spot alongside the massive racetrack, across the infield from the twin spires. One car was parked next to mine. Trainer Nick Zito, whom I had arranged to meet at the track, stood nearby, talking with an acquaintance. Not another person was in sight. Had I brought my crossbow, I could have fired arrows in four directions and not harmed a soul.
Three adult siblings will sit in a spectator box this Saturday at Churchill Downs to watch the Kentucky Derby. They will dress for the occasion, bet foolishly on slow horses and surely sip a mint julep or two. Come late afternoon, when the Downs' fabled twin spires cast shadows across the sandy loam of the track, they will cheer in full throat for Barbaro, a tall, long-bodied 3-year-old colt to whom they are linked by a tether that reaches back 17 years.
Let's suppose you approach Saturday's Preakness Stakes, the second jewel of horse racing's Triple Crown, from a wagering perspective. (I am assuming that many people do, because that's the question I get most from family, friends and colleagues when I'm on the horse racing beat: Who is going to win? The short answer is: I have no idea. I haven't made a bet since the 1987 Travers, when I lost a much-too-large wager on a short horse named Polish Navy).
LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Calvin Borel looked tired Tuesday morning. It might have been because he got up while it was still dark out, drove his gunmetal gray Chevy truck from his home in the Louisville Highlands to Churchill Downs and worked three horses before most people sip their first skim latte of the day.
On a warm winter morning at a South Florida thoroughbred training center, Carl Nafzger talked with a visitor while a young colt watched from his stall not 10 feet away. The nation's 2-year-old champion in 2006, Street Sense had not run a race in the new year, and here it was the last day of February. The Kentucky Derby loomed in the distance. "He's a phenomenal horse," said Nafzger, a 65-year-old Texan with a weed-whacker drawl and one Derby victory already on his résumé. "But wherever we're going, it's up to him to take us there. We'll just go along."
Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Churchill Downs are separated by just 125 miles of southern Indiana countryside and the Ohio River. That's 50 laps around the Speedway, twice as many around Churchill. But the expansive motor racing cathedral, with its signature yard of bricks, and the stately horse racing track, defined by its dignified twin spires now dwarfed by grotesque modernization, are undeniably linked. Many of their most cherished traditions seem rooted in the same values. And each became the standard by which all who compete in their respective sports are judged.
Early Friday morning I drove through Gate 5 on the Churchill Downs backstretch. I motored along, without stopping once, through a maze of horse barns and small auxiliary buildings until I pulled into a parking spot alongside the massive racetrack, across the infield from the twin spires. One car was parked next to mine. Trainer Nick Zito, whom I had arranged to meet at the track, stood nearby, talking with an acquaintance. Not another person was in sight. Had I brought my crossbow, I could have fired arrows in four directions and not harmed a soul.
Three adult siblings will sit in a spectator box this Saturday at Churchill Downs to watch the Kentucky Derby. They will dress for the occasion, bet foolishly on slow horses and surely sip a mint julep or two. Come late afternoon, when the Downs' fabled twin spires cast shadows across the sandy loam of the track, they will cheer in full throat for Barbaro, a tall, long-bodied 3-year-old colt to whom they are linked by a tether that reaches back 17 years.
Let's suppose you approach Saturday's Preakness Stakes, the second jewel of horse racing's Triple Crown, from a wagering perspective. (I am assuming that many people do, because that's the question I get most from family, friends and colleagues when I'm on the horse racing beat: Who is going to win? The short answer is: I have no idea. I haven't made a bet since the 1987 Travers, when I lost a much-too-large wager on a short horse named Polish Navy).
LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Calvin Borel looked tired Tuesday morning. It might have been because he got up while it was still dark out, drove his gunmetal gray Chevy truck from his home in the Louisville Highlands to Churchill Downs and worked three horses before most people sip their first skim latte of the day.
On a warm winter morning at a South Florida thoroughbred training center, Carl Nafzger talked with a visitor while a young colt watched from his stall not 10 feet away. The nation's 2-year-old champion in 2006, Street Sense had not run a race in the new year, and here it was the last day of February. The Kentucky Derby loomed in the distance. "He's a phenomenal horse," said Nafzger, a 65-year-old Texan with a weed-whacker drawl and one Derby victory already on his résumé. "But wherever we're going, it's up to him to take us there. We'll just go along."
Trainer Carl Nafzger is back at Churchill Downs with what appears to be a very good chance to win the Kentucky Derby. Again. (He has a good chance, at least, to the extent that any trainer has a ''good'' chance to win the most challenging race in the world). Street Sense, who won last November's Breeders Cup Juvenile race for Nafzger and longtime client James Tafel, is training spectacularly for the Derby and will probably be made the favorite on Saturday afternoon. (Even though he was not expected to be installed as the morning line favorite by Churchill Downs oddsmaker Mike Battaglia.)
Victory in the Kentucky Derby comes at a cost. That cost can be measured partly in the simplest possible economic terms (dollars and cents), but also by far more complex criteria for which there is no equation. As soon as you find a way to assign empirical values to dreams (those both fulfilled and lost), labor (endless hours worked away from family) and the fog of legacy, let me know. We'll crunch the digits.
He could see this call coming. Not long after the end of last year's Kentucky Derby, trainer Todd Pletcher's cellphone buzzed to life. His 3-year-old colt, Bluegrass Cat, had just run second to Barbaro with a solid performance that nonetheless kept Pletcher winless in the most significant horse race on the planet. On the other end was David Lerner, a friend and fraternity brother from Pi Kappa Alpha two decades ago at Arizona.
Michael Matz seems a little older this year. That description does not denigrate Matz. At 56, he still appears at least a decade younger than his birth certificate claims. His hips and shoulders are impossibly slim, as if time has spared his equestrian's body; his eyes are still a piercing blue. Maybe it's just the subject matter that has aged him.
Most of America catches up with the Kentucky Derby about 15 minutes before the starting gate slams open on the first Saturday in May. (Make no mistake, they do catch up; Derby TV ratings kill). The race unfolds in two minutes, followed by a tedious TV presentation on the Churchill Downs infield in which a procession of lawmakers, corporate executives and anchormen step on each other's pronouncements. But it looks nice, out there on the ersatz front porch.
How swiftly the Triple Crown talk changed, from uncertainty to the pursuit of greatness in two minutes. Before the start of the 132nd Kentucky Derby last Saturday, the race appeared wide open. At least a half dozen good horses could not be separated by ordinary handicapping tools. Any one of seven could win, said two-time Derby-winning trainer Nick Zito. Any one of 10, said three-time winner Bob Baffert. Parity reigned. There was no apparent superstar.
The Kentucky Derby may be a horse race (and what a race - it's the oldest continuously running sporting event in the U.S.), but let's be honest. Ask most people what they associate with the Derby and they'll likely say "mint juleps and hats."
No matter which way you see Louisville, you'll make it to the winner's circle. A bumper sticker sums it up perfectly: "I wasn't born in Kentucky, but I got here as fast as I could."
The Kentucky Derby will showcase a sponsor for the first time in its 131 years of horse racing, as the chain that owns KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut has inked a deal with the race.
Never has creeping commercialism in sports been such a reason to cheer as it was Thursday, when jockeys got the right to wear ads in the Kentucky Derby.
At times the sport of kings is still just that. On the first Saturday in May, expensively clad women in big hats and men in sharp suits flock to Churchill Downs for the Kentucky Derby, which just c...
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