The first Saturday of May is a sacred day in Louisville, Kentucky. The entire city, along with thousands of visitors, focuses all of their attention on Churchill Downs and the first leg of horse racing's Triple Crown, the Kentucky Derby.
The race is nicknamed the Run for the Roses because the winning horse is given a garland of roses. This tradition started in 1896 when the winner, Ben Brush, was given a garland of pink and white roses, according to the official Kentucky Derby website.
The garland of roses is only the first of many traditions celebrated each year at the Derby. As the horses are paraded out directly before the race the University of Louisville band plays "My Old Kentucky Home" by Stephen Foster. The song becomes a sing along for the 100,000 plus in attendance and gets the crowd buzzing before the race.
The most well known tradition at the Derby has to be the hats. Women, especially the women wearing their finest in Millionaire's row, are encouraged to wear the most elaborate hats they can dream of. Hats will be decorated in the gaudiest way possible with ribbons, flowers, bows, sequins and little plastic horses.
The party atmosphere of the Derby wouldn't be complete without an official drink, the mint julep. Most patrons will enjoy at least one glass of the concoction made of crushed ice, bourbon, sugar, water and mint while at the rest, some will enjoy many more than one.
Those who enjoy a few too many juleps are the characters that have made the infield famous, some might say infamous. In a story for a 1970 issue of Scanlan's Monthly entitled "The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved" Hunter S. Thompson described the scene he encountered among the masses in the infield.
"Thousands of raving, stumbling drunks, getting angrier and angrier as they lose more and more money," Thompson wrote. "By midafternoon they'll be guzzling mint juleps with both hands and vomiting on each other between races."
It's easy among all the spectacle to forget that there is an actual horse race happening on Saturday. One of this year's favorites is Goldencents, with odds of 5-1 the horse is co-owned by Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino. Pitino and his team won the NCAA championship on April 8th, if his horse wins on Saturday Pitino will have had one of the most remarkable months in sports history.
The favorite right now is Orb going off at 7-2. When placing bets one has to be careful not to pay too much attention to the odds for fear that they might overanalyze things. Or they could just bet on a horse named Overanalyze, who has fair odds at 15-1. It would be a giant finish if Giant Finish was able to win the raise, currently the odds are 50-1 for the horse.
According to ESPN there is a chance that rain will be a factor this Saturday. That's when the big hats become both fashionable and functional. Rain or shine the scene at Churchill Downs will be a festive one.
