The Kentucky Derby

This past week I drove to Louisville Kentucky to visit my relatives for a three day weekends. Along with my moms 6 siblings and parents who live in Kentucky my brother attends the University of Kentucky as well. While making the long 5 hour drive I drove by horse farms after horse farms. I've grown up around horses and the famous race tracks such as Keenland and of course Church Hill Downs. My grandpa owns horses at Church Hill Downs and I've even been able to attend some horse races in person. While driving past all these horse farms I began to get very excited for the even that takes place every 1st Saturday in May...The Kentucky Derby.

I remember as a little kid my mom jumping up and down in front of the TV screaming for the horse she chose to win. I would attend countless derby parties as a child it was almost as though Derby Day is a bigger day for Christmas in my family and the whole state of Kentucky. ESPN after all does call it, "The most exciting 2 minutes in sport history."

"It is now or never for every horse in the race -- a single dash at immortality, a mile-and-a-quarter cavalry charge toward history. Unlike John Elway in the Super Bowl or Roy Williams in the Final Four or Phil Mickelson in a major, there are no second chances at the Derby. Thoroughbreds are only 3-year-olds once. Win and your name is memorialized on the paddock walls of Churchill Downs for as long as the place stands. Lose and you're assigned to the small type of the race charts, on your way to eternal anonymity" (ESPN.com).

Everything about Derby Day is exciting; getting to dress up and wear a giant hat, learning about the trainers and the horses stories, getting to make bets where you could become extremely rich or extremely poor in a matter of 2 minutes. It's exhilarating every one's heart starts to race; two minutes and it's over. all the training all hours put into these horses and jockeys two minutes and you get nothing back. It's what these people live for.

I know on May 5Th I'll be making the trip back to Kentucky to watch this exciting event that comes once a year. I'm hoping to suck up to my grandpa to see if maybe I can snag a ticket to the derby myself. Who knows maybe I'll be able to even make a buck or two...hundred.