My First KY Derby Experience! Gemologist Wins!

Yesterday, I experienced my first Kentucky Derby! It was more than just that though; it was my first time at a horse track ever! What better way to introduce me to horse racing than the first race in the Triple Crown?

One thing about the derby is it brings tons of business and people to Louisville. And because of that, locals stood on their porches defending their driveways and yards (Similar to the character Clint Eastwood played in Gran Torino); many sold parking spaces though. Here is an example of one man with a huge stick uncomfortably close to our Jeep:

Walking to Churchill Downs, there no way of missing the countless number of crazy floppy hats. The weather was great though, hot and sunny. So, it makes logical sense to wear those hats in order to protect the head from the sun. And many ladies were wearing some good looking dresses. The female counterpart dressed in suits. This doesn't make much sense since it was ridiculously hot (Traditions!). I wore a shirt and I was sweating like Kevin Garnett during warm ups. And if the guys weren't wearing suits, they dressed as preppy as possible basically (Think less muscular Ralph Lauren models). I felt quite under-dressed but I was outrageously comfortable. Come to think of it, the Kentucky Derby may just be an adult prom that everyone is invited to.

So I experienced my first horse race in the Kentucky Derby infield. If you don't know what happens in the infield, it's just a huge party! For those from UConn, think spring weekend with more people and more space with older people and tents for various food and beverages (with drinks upgraded from what college kids drink). And instead of peeing like a race horse (Get it?) in the woods and such, there are porta parties. It was definitely a unique and awesome experience. And like UConn spring weekend, there were so many people in one area that cell services were all terrible. It's probably for the best that the infield is left out of the television aspect of the race (They do a great job of it too. For the years that I've watched on TV, I never knew that a huge party was in the middle of the track.)

The track is pretty far away from the fenced off area, so it's not easily visible. Here is the prospective I had for the main race ("We don't want six. Six is terrible! Six is the worst! Six is the worst horse!"):

As you can see, number 6 (Bodemister, the favorite) and number 9 is ahead with number 19 and 15 no where to be found. Being in the infield, we didn't see the finish in person. We watched on a screen that was a good distance away. So we all knew that Bodemister didn't win because he was over taken at the end but we didn't know who won. The screen put the results up; the massive group around me is trying to determine who won. But the end of it, people saw 15 on the screen and Gemologist has one the race. Everyone was upset that he won the race (mostly because of lost bets) except a short woman wearing a crazy hat, who was ecstatic. What an exciting 3 seconds of actually seeing the horses!

Then, we went to Cafe Mimosa for dinner (Exciting food! And the waiter was the best!). The waiter asked one of our group members, "Would you like another drink? But before you answer that, who won the Kentucky Derby?" My doppelganger replies, "Gemologist". The waiter asks again, and the answer was the same. Our entire group is thinking "What is our waiter trying to do right here and is this a joke?". The waiter says "You went to the race hours ago and you don't know who won the race?!" So, I thought he was joking with him about how much he had to drink.

Wanting to know how well the horses I picked did, I looked to the internet on my phone. I was very confused by why "I'll have another" is all over the KY Derby site. Then, we all realized "I'll have another" (Number 19, who had 15-1 odds to win) not Gemologist won the race. Then, my doppelganger went nuts because he actually won a bet! All of a sudden, the waiter's question made logical sense. So, we were at the Derby and for about three hours, we thought a horse that actually came in 16th place won the race. We weren't the only ones though; hundreds, maybe thousands, of people in the infield thought the same thing! I wonder how many winning betting tickets were trashed. So lessons learned: Don't trust word of mouth, don't throw away betting tickets, and the infield is a terrible place to actually watch the race.

Here's a video of a child dancing while we were in the terrible traffic in route to dinner:

And the fortune cookie said this:

I basically live by that!