The Kentucky Derby is a spectacle like no other — and so much more than a horse race | Izenberg

“The unspeakable in full pursuit of the unseeable. ” — the Kentucky Derby infield crowd. “Until you go to the Kentucky Derby you ain’t never been nowhere and you ain’t never seen nothing.

” — Irwin S. Cobb, Humorist, newspaperman from Paducah, KY. This is the Kentucky Derby.

You can’t apply the above quotes to any other horserace. I covered my first in 1963 and this is about the way it was then. And despite the changes corporate greed has wrought in both its presentation and its income, the Twin Spires of Churchill Downs haven’t been sold off as billboards, the race is still its traditional mile quarter and the tourists still behave like tourists.

This isn’t just a horse race. This is a week-long non-stop equine bacchanalia. There are visiting grifters, ladies of the evening (morning and afternoon) and pickpockets from everywhere test the endurance of naïve celebrities, who dress like the cast of Guys and Dolls, neighboring homeowners, who sell their front lawns as parking lots, and honest horse players, who tell each other `I’ve got the horse right here.