Shocking Kentucky Derby Win

 

This morning Travalon came to help me with the garden; they were selling plants there, but I had forgotten my spade, and there isn't one in the community shed, so we just spread my hay out on my plot and will come back next week to plant. (I have to have something planted by the end of the day next Sunday.) Then we took a walk on Governor's Island, and we saw a yellow warbler posing for us, so Travalon bemoaned that he hadn't brought his good camera. Fortunately he already took a good picture of one at Patrick Marsh, which I posted on this blog. Then we came home so he could get his good camera before we went to Jackson's Landing for another walk, but he forgot it and had to run back upstairs for it. Good thing he got it, because there are baby cranes!

These are very small babies, so they must have hatched in the last few days. Then we drove to Jackson's Landing, and we saw a lone crane. I'm guessing its mate is on the nest with unhatched eggs.

This photo makes me laugh - it's not the best photo of a red-winged blackbird, but you can see its beak is wide open, and they are very noisy birds, always making that weird, metallic sound they make.

Then we went to the Kentucky Derby party at the Edgewood Hotel, and that was perfection. They were giving out straw hats - here is a photo of Travalon wearing one. The other one is in front of me because it was entirely too large for my head.

They also gave out swag bags, which contained cheap sunglasses, a weird pin, baseball caps that said "Maker's Mark," and a Maker's Mark bowtie. I tried to follow the instructions to put one on Travalon, but they didn't make any sense after Step Four (I'm not saying that's because of the mint julep I had just enjoyed, but I'm not saying it's not), and anyway, it was too small for his neck. We sat at a table with a friendly couple from Monticello (the town, not Jefferson's plantation), and the woman had a fabulous hat with a horse and some roses on it. We each got a ticket when we arrived, and I wasted mine playing the ring game, where you try to toss a ring around a bottle of wine. My first throw was wild, but that was because my purse was on my arm and knocking my aim off. I put it down, and my other try was so good that I did get a bottle, but it bounced off. I saw other people walking around with bottles of wine, so some people must have succeeded. It was $5 to buy another ticket, so I didn't bother.

Travalon used his ticket to bet on a horse. There were containers for each horse, and if you picked the winning horse, they would draw from that container so you might win a standup paddle board, a cooler, or a Maker's Mark sign. Since I didn't particularly want any of those prizes, I didn't pay $5 to get another ticket to bet on a horse. Travalon bet on Simplification because he liked his name; I would have bet on a beautiful, shiny black horse that ended up coming in third. 

There were two bands that played, both playing funk music. The first one played songs we recognized, like Stevie Wonder and Tower of Power and James Brown, while the second one played nothing that I recognized, so they may have all been original songs, but I did like them all. They were from Chicago. Before the race, they had the Bucks game on the giant TV screen, which made Travalon happy, but then they turned it off for some reason with only two minutes to go, and the Bucks were only up by three, not like fifteen or something, so it was anyone's game at that point. I kept peeking at my phone and knew the Bucks won by two, but Travalon didn't want to know, so I didn't tell him. Of course a friend texted him and said, "What a game! Giannis comes through again!" So he didn't say the Bucks won, but in fact he did. Travalon had taped the game, so he watched it when we got home.

Finally it was the pre-race coverage. They said a horse had to pull out, so another horse that had been planning to race in New York today was invited to join the Derby. This horse was an 80-1 long shot, and he had the outermost position, which of course is a disadvantage because then he had to run further. He wasn't even one of the choices for betting on at our party. When the race started, he was toward the back of the pack, but he kept making his way forward to where the two favorites were running neck-and-neck, and then he suddenly had a burst of speed, pulled in front of both of them, and won!!! Can you imagine the kind of money you could have made if you had actually bet on this horse?? It did make me deliriously happy, since it felt like anything could happen if that could. However, it complicated things for the drawing at our party. Should they choose the container for the horse that dropped out? Should they choose the one for the horse that came in second? They decided to do the latter, and the prizes were awarded. There were also prizes (Maker's Mark jackets) for the best man's and woman's hat. The woman who won had this fabulous fascinator that looked like something out of Dr. Seuss. Now is a fascinator really a hat? It has to be held onto your head, whereas a hat stays on your head via gravity, and it serves a purpose, either keeping your head warm or shading you from the sun. Fascinators are awesome, and far more popular in Britain where it isn't as cold and it isn't as sunny. Maybe they could catch on here for going out at night when the weather is warm enough. I didn't realize they were popular for the Kentucky Derby; I usually think of women wearing big straw hats covered with flowers, but I saw almost as many fascinators as what I would call "real" hats at this Derby party. Since the British Royal Family loves fascinators, maybe Jilly Moose can tell us something about this, like are they technically hats? I mean, I guess they are headwear, but so is a headband, and nobody would call that a hat. Maybe this gets into a philosophical debate about what is a hat. A fascinator wouldn't be the Platonic ideal, but maybe it kind of qualifies. Feel free to leave your thoughts about this important debate in the comments.

Famous Hat