Kentucky Oaks 135: All the Pretty Horses

Horse-whipped: Rachel Alexandra was so far ahead in the Kentucky Oaks finale that by
the time I squared my camera and snapped a picture, she was gone and all that was left
were the losers she dusted. (Pictured: The losers)

It should have been clear that something special was going to happen during the 135th Kentucky Derby weekend the minute Scott Padgett, a Kentucky University alum and member of the NBA from 1999-2007, stepped in front of me and shot me a goofy awkward smile. It didn't occur to m then, but it should have. At the time I was holding out for a smile from such D-Listers as Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton and Peyton Manning (in New England, where I come from, you bet your ass Manning is considered D-List. He's lucky he gets that much credit).

The Kentucky Derby must be seen to be believed. Churchill Downs in the first week of May is like a Jay Gatsby party in which every woman in attendance is under the impression she's Daisy Buchanan. There's no orchestras and even less jazz (unless you count Taylor Swift as jazzy, in which case it's just as Fitzgerald imagined it).

What you need to remember is that the Kentucky Derby weekend is only about the 23 horse races to everyone outside of Louisville, KY. Inside the town, it's about hats and mint juleps. Seeing the mares and fillies are the Garfunkel to the Churchill Downs cocktail party's Simon. As someone who's fingers were inked with the racing forms 20 minutes after I arrived, I was unaware how passing the interests of most of the grandstand elite's interests were. Over the nine hours I watched the fillies run on Friday's Kentucky Oaks races, this passivity was something that revealed itself to me as harshly as an unwashed flasher.

It took longer to understand why a woman would want to spend a day moving the wid brim of her hat out of her eyes than the basics of betting on the horses. There are 12 female races during Fridy's Oaks and 11 races during Saturdy's Derby. There are anywhere between eight to 13 horses in each race accept for each day's main event, in which there are a maximum of 20 horses.

Unlike the U.K., America sets its lines based upon the betting patterns of the masses. So if June Day is a 3-1 favorite on Wednesday, but no one bets on her by race time Friday, the odds that she'll win don't remain at 3-1, they'll decrease significantly.

American odds, like the horses existence at Churchill Downs, don't really matter. The people in attendance do. It starts there. It stops there. Don't you forget it. And while you're up, go get me another mint julep. Louisville makes me hanker for drinks that taste like mouthwash and whiskey.

Before each race, you can bet early or you can bet late. Technically you can bet whenever you want, but unless you want to be reading about horse betting for another six hours, let's go with the simplest explanation. If you bet on Senor Fuego in Friday's fourth race 40 minutes before she's set to race, you'll be basing your wager on the racing form, the analysis inside and your gut (if there's two things I learned not to trust on Derby weekend, it's my gut and men dressed in pink. Never trust any event that compels thousands of men to congregate together wearing pink). The early odds are based on the horse's, trainer's and jockey's history and has nothing to do with the people's wagers. Then again, if you bet on Senor Fuego at 8-1 odds 40 minutes before the race, by the time the bets windows close, the masses could have made her a 5-2 favorite or a 30-1 underdog and you'll be trapped into your bet.

Then again, if you wait until after the odds have been muddied with the gut-feeling wagers of the over-tanned wannabe West Egg socialites. The choice is up to you.

When you're in the wager lines, waiting for a chance to give a surely cashier money that you'll probably never see again, you have many chances to see all sorts of race fans. Churchill Downs is an old boys club to be sure. Men with money bring their wives who are living off of it to an event that they dare not miss. Twentysomethings and the very elderly alike arrived at Churchill Downs in costume. The ridiculousness was in the irony not on display. When a skinny woman in a bright canary dress spills her mimosa on her shoes because she's too preoccupied fiddling with te feathers on her gigantic top hat that she's clearly not comfortable wearing, the idea that all of here are classy sports enthusiasts is just as difficult to swallow as a second mint julep. Seriously, those things are awful.

At the races, showing up in a low-cut prom dresses and large hats or suits that make its wearers appear to own plantations is not only acceptable, it's expected. But taken out of context, if any of the people at the races los their way and wound up in another state in their getup, they would immediately be checked into the nearest looney bin.

Churchill Downs is a fraternity, replacing sophomoric paddles with cigars and handshakes and tourists affecting a southern cadence when they speak. Pledge week happens every 40 minutes and if you don't win money, you're just another sucker inexplicably wearing a bowtie.

On Friday, I bet the winning horse 3-of-7 times, came out of the day down $80 (I did win a hot dog from my girlfriend, which emotionally counted as about $25) and got to see the Oaks favorite Rachel Alexandra beat the field by 20 1/4-lengths, an Oaks record. Rachel Alexandra was such a fast horse that the common belief is that she could have won the Derby had she been entered into it. (Editor's note: Calvin Borel, the jockey who rode Rachel Alexandra to victory on Friday, also rode the 50-1 shot Mine That Bird to a shocking Derby victory one day later. Two days after that the cheapskates that owned Rachel Alexandra sold her to a wealthier stable and they will enter the filly to race among the mares in the Preakness Stakes later this month. Borel chose the female horse to ride in the Preakness instead of the Derby Winner. Rachel Alexandra is only the third filly to run in the Preakness and Borel is only the third jockey to switch off the Derby winner before the Preakness).

The win was breathtaking and brilliant, even for a novice like myself. Imagine your first basketball experience being witness to a LeBron James triple-double? What if all you knew of baseball was an Albert Pujols home run? I don't doubt that Rachel Alexandra's ass-whuppin' was on the same level and therefore bore a new race fan in me.

Afterwards, I heard Adrian Brody was at the race, along with various brats from MTV shows. When did I hear this? Les than 60 seconds after Rachel Alexandra's run, purloined from a text message off a young woman's iPhone. Then the conversation buzzing aroud the group to my left turned into Kim Kardashian's Barnstable party and where in the grandstands Michael Jordan might have been. Not the horse, or the nex day's derby or the spectator's winnings or losongs. None of that mattered because in Louisville, it's about the spectators, not what they';re are spectating.

And the only thing more shameful than the fans' attentionto the eent was how hard I tried to evesdrop the last conversation long enough to find out where Jordan was hiding.

You hafta admit, it would have been awesome to rub elbows with Mike.