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Tag: Louisville

Dressed for the horses

Derby Day: Assault, a King Ranch Wonder Horse, Takes The Triple Crown

May 5, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Derby Day, and thoughts go back to 2013, when Angela and I spent the weekend in Louisville with friends and hundreds of thousands of strangers drinking Juleps and drenched — it was a muddy running — the women with plastic over their hats, the men wearing shoes heavy with rain. We were lodging in a haunted bed and breakfast near the river, a house whose owner was delightfully eccentric and made soft and creamy eggs for our breakfast.

I’ve forgotten who won the Derby that year, and I guess I could look it up, but I prefer to remember Barbaro, and another horse, this one a Triple Crown winner, the only horse from Texas to have ever won that illustrious title (and one of only 12 horses ever). He was foaled at King Ranch on March 26, 1943, sired by Bold Venture, winner of the Derby and Preakness Stakes. Assault’s story is an inspiring one; known as the “Club-footed Comet”, the chestnut horse stepped on what is believed to have been a surveyor’s stake early in life, and thereafter walked with a limp, an impediment that disappeared at full gallop, something Assault did with gusto.

Assault died in 1971. Think of him today while watching The Derby, and while you are, I hope, sipping a Mint Julep.

 

The Derby, One Year On

May 3, 2014 / / 0 Comments

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This exact time last year Angela and I were in Louisville, for the Derby, enjoying a great breakfast of grits and bacon and eggs in a little bed and breakfast in Indiana, just over the Kentucky border and about 10 miles from Churchill Downs. We were not alone. In addition to the promised ghosts – which the proprietor told us existed but whom I never saw – we were there with Colby and Kim and David and Nicole and Zack and Susan and Michael, an eccentric and lively crew if ever there was one. (Come to think of it, I know why the ghosts stayed in their closets.)

The weekend began with food and drink and ended the same way; when Angela and I spend time with Colby and Kim that is the order of the day, whether it be Spain or Dallas or Austin. I wagered $50 or so on the horses, failing to add to my holdings, and made a Derby style statement with my knickerbockers.

I am not at the Derby this year, but I am sure I will make another appearance in Louisville in May in another year. And today I will be spending time with Angela, and am certain we will find ourselves in a bar, watching the horses run. (And you read it here first: California Chrome will wear the roses.)

 

 

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