Even the best laid plans...

...sometimes go awry.

Despite getting up at 5:30am to drive to Louisville to watch Derby and Oaks contenders train in their designated time slot of 8:30-8:45, I was foiled by the Kentucky Derby Festival Marathon, which blocked off all roads into Churchill Downs from the only way this directionally challenged person knows how to get there. Each police officer I asked directed me to another blocked road. By the time I asked Ed DeRosa of Thoroughbred Times how to maneuver around the [expletive deleted] blockades and successfully got to the track, I caught just the last of the Classic hopefuls. (Mind you, I was only a few blocks away from Churchill at 7:40, but it was 8:35 when I actually got there.)

The horses on the footage below are, in order of appearance:

Summer Soiree

Daisy Devine (blinkers with four yellow wraps)

Stay Thirsty (misidentified by the woman beside me as Uncle Mo)

Uncle Mo

Midnight Interlude

Plum Pretty

Lilacs and Lace

Santiva

Watch Me Go

Daisy Devine (not Daisy “Fever” as I called her)

Midnight Interlude

Lilacs and Lace

Summer Soiree

Brilliant Speed

The Factor

You’ll hear an outrider saying Uncle Mo stumbled and nearly threw his rider after they had passed us. I didn’t see it so won’t speculate on what, if anything, happened. None of the recaps I found on the morning’s activities commented on any such incident.

Here are some photos from the morning:

Mucho Macho Man

Stay Thirsty

Kathmanblu

Summer Soiree

Brilliant Speed

Shackleford

Shackleford getting a bath.

Pretty in pink!
The big, tough John Deere tractors working the track after training hours were over.

For my future reference, I was informed by one of the men on the backstretch that had I turned at the, er, “titty bar,” I would have been able to avoid all of the closed roads and get to the track with ease. Shocking how I didn’t know about that shortcut...