And they're off: Greetings from Churchill Downs

Today is Kentucky Derby day, so check out this post we did back in '09 about a visit we made to Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky.

And, by the way, my favorite horse name of all time has to be Hoof Hearted.

Greetings from Louisville, Kentucky: Happy Derby Day!

Today is Kentucky Derby day or "the running of the roses" as they like to call it. We're big KD fans here at Eccentric Roadside and we've had the pleasure of visiting Churchill Downs in beautiful Louisville, Kentucky twice (but never on Derby day...what are you, nuts?). While watching the races, I was intrigued to find that they have a nattily attired bugler play that horse racing fanfare tune (you know the one) before every race all day long. He comes out of his little house, plays the tune twice, and then goes back into his little house again. Not a bad way to make a living. Here's a crappy video I shot of it. And they're off!

Our cup runneth over: Lexington, Kentucky's Dixie Cup water tower

I love looking at water towers while driving around the country. They come in all shapes, sizes and styles and every one is a gem, especially the ones that proudly announce the name of their community in big letters for all to see or ones that have a bit of whimsy painted on them. A particularly awesome tower is in Lexington, Kentucky, a town with a few other great eccentric roadside attractions (see previous posts). On the property of the Georgia-Pacific plant is a water tower in the shape of a giant Dixie cup. In 1958, the Dixie Cup Company decided to have their tower function as a giant beacon of corporate branding and the cup water tower was erected. I've read that the current owners, Georgia-Pacific, wanted to take the tower down but the city wouldn't let them because the tower serves as a navigation device for the nearby airport. I'd love to hear a tape of the air traffic control booth in this area: "Roger, niner, you're cleared for landing. Bring her in just past the Dixie cup." If Georgia-Pacific was upset about this you wouldn't know it because they do a nice job of maintaining the tower and it really does look like a Dixie cup. Corporate America should be commended for maintaining classic roadside attractions like these, and I ain't just whistling Dixie.

And they're off: Horsing around at Louisville, Kentucky's Churchill Downs

We happened to visit on Mother's Day.
Nothing says "I love you Mom" like a $2 bet on Glow Worm in the fifth.

Our horse came in last.

You can't visit Churchill Downs without having a Mint Julep
(unless you don't drink or you don't like Mint Juleps).

This is the Winner's Circle, where the horses get that big bunch of roses put around their necks on Kentucky Derby day. This picture also reminds me of a gag from The Benny Hill Show.

"Hello, Central Casting? Send up a guy who looks likes
he spends a lot of time at the race track."

Here's a picture of me and a guy with a big rear end.
(That's me on the left.)

These seats go for $500 on Kentucky Derby day.
They were $2 when we were there.

They really do play that little horseracing fanfare tune
before each race.

People in Kentucky take their horses seriously. After all, they've got the most famous horse event in the world. And as far as big sporting tournaments go, the Kentucky Derby is one of the more eccentric. Run since 1875, it's the oldest continuing sporting event in the USA, and it's been at Louisville, Kentucky's Churchill Downs race track since 1937. Unlike the Super Bowl or the World Series, spectators in the stands wear extremely nice clothes. Women's hats alone are a sport unto themselves, with their own parade that follows the race. And what's the official drink of March Madness? Gatorade? Please. The Kentucky Derby has the genteel Mint Julep, a harsh-until-you've-had-a-few libation of mint, Kentucky bourbon, sugar and water. The race only lasts a couple minutes, "the most exciting two minutes in sports" as it's known, so the event is all about anticipation. TV reporters spew forth facts and figures and heart-tugging stories about plucky horses and their come from behind owners and jockeys for hours before the race, only to have some horse they completely ignored steal the show.

We visited Churchill Downs on a beautiful May Sunday, which also happened to be Mother's Day. Maybe because of that there were a lot of nicely dressed families in attendance. We took a great guided tour which got us right up to the track which was sandier and muddier than expected, reminding me of the Seinfeld horseracing episode with the line "His father was a mudder. His mother was a mudder."

It's nice to see all the racetrack cliches come to life before your eyes. A portly but nattily attired trumpeter plays that familiar horse racing fanfare before each race. He waits in his own special little house until just the right time, comes out, plays the tune, and then goes back inside until the next race. I like that.

We couldn't leave without placing a bet, so we decided to put $2 on the horse with the longest odds. The guy at the betting window said number 4, no wait, number 2, so number 2, Aggressive Adventurer, it was. Let's just say we won't be retiring from our gambling winnings. Aggressive Adventurer came in last. Number 4 won, though. The weed of gambling bears bitter fruit.

Ass good ass it gets: A gallery of horse's patoots from the Kentucky Horse Park

Lexington, Kentucky likes to bill itself as the "Horse Capital of the World" and with good reason, for the Kentucky Horse Park is located here. It's been a working horse farm and an educational theme park since 1978 with museums, lovely grounds, and a daily parade of former champion horses including Cigar and Funny Cide who now call this bucolic place home. It's a beautiful, serene place and even if you're only mildly interested in our equine friends, you can have a nice time here. But what about the eccentric roadside attractions fan? Pretty white fences and thick Kentucky Bluegrass will only take you so far. I've got it...horses' rumps. Derisively calling someone a horse's ass has long been a mainstay in our culture and they've literally got a ton of them here (and by that I mean the animals, not the staff, who are very nice indeed). Why did that term became synonymous with "stupid person" though? The Urban Dictionary puts it this way:

Someone who is not just an ass, but a big ass, indeed, a horse's ass. Someone who really makes an ass of themselves.

And let's face it, we all make horse's asses out of ourselves every once in a while, so why not embrace it? As President John F. Kennedy would say, "Ass not what your country can do for you. Ass what you can do for your country."

Mortar-fied: Bondurant's Pharmacy of Lexington, Kentucky

Lexington, Kentucky has a lot of pretty horse country with beautiful green fields and white fences. If you're a horse, this is where you want to be. Lexington also has a really great eccentric roadside attraction: a pharmacy in the shape of a giant mortar and pestle. Bondurant's Pharmacy sits in a shopping plaza parking lot and is an oasis from the boring box stores that dot so much of the landscape. It's 30 feet tall and 32 feet in diameter, and the pestle protrudes another 10 feet. Here's what the Bondurant's website has to say about it:

The giant round building with the ball on the top has been helping the residents of Lexington feel better since 1974. Nowadays, Eric Brewer owns and manages Bondurant’s which got its name from Joe Bondurant, a man who loved big ideas. After a trip to Las Vegas, Mr. Bondurant – already a pharmacist – decided to make his dream come true, a pharmacy shaped like a mortar and pestle. Eric and his family also have an earlier role in Bondurant’s history. “My dad built the model of this place using an old Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket.”

The parking lot behind the structure has a few eccentric relics: a drive-in theater-like speaker system where customers would park their cars. The pharmacist would announce when the customers' prescriptions were ready over the intercom. Customers would then come to the pick up window for their drugs. This is curious, since the store also has drive-up windows. Did the speaker system precede the drive-up? Or could you do both? And did they show coming attractions while you were waiting for your Erythromiacin? They stopped using the speaker system in 2000 as the decaying paint job will attest and this just adds to the glorious yesteryear look and feel of the place.

This is an admirable roadside structure, especially since it's from the '70s and not the '30s, the hey-day for buildings shaped like big things. Even the backyard speaker system was behind the times when they built it, as drive-in theaters were already beginning to fade by then. And my favorite feature about this place is the fact that there is a 2nd-floor apartment for the pharmacist, although it's never been used for that. What pharmacist wouldn't want to live in a giant mortar and pestle?

They say it's your birthday: Louisville, Kentucky's "Happy Birthday To You" song plaque

I'm not sure this is what the Hill sisters had in mind.

Before we leave that great stretch of Louisville, Kentucky's Main Street that has the giant Louisville Slugger and Caufield Novelty Company bat (see previous post), there's one more eccentric roadside attraction nestled in between those two that I don't want to leave out. Underneath the overpass of Interstate 64 and attached to a parking lot sits a plaque in honor of two kindergarten-teaching sisters from Louisville who composed the "Happy Birthday To You" song. Patty and Mildred Hill wrote a tune in 1893 called "Good Morning to All" that was easy for their young students to sing. It had the melody of what later became "Happy Birthday To You," which first appeared as a song in print in 1912. In 1924, "Good Morning to All," with "Happy Birthday to You" printed as an optional second verse, was published. Oddly, the song was copyrighted much later in 1932 but with Preston Ware Orem and Mrs. R.R. Forman as the composers. A third Hill sister, Jessica, believing that Patty and Mildred should have the credit and profit for the now very popular song, fought for and won legal copyright to her sisters for their song, and it was officially published in 1935 as "Happy Birthday." In 1990, Warner Chappell purchased the company owning the copyright for $15 million, with the value of "Happy Birthday" estimated at $5 million. This company charges as much as $10,000 every time the song is used in movies, TV and recordings, or performed live commercially. The current copyright doesn't elapse until 2030. This explains why the waitstaff at TGIFridays doesn't sing the Happy Birthday song but some other tune like Yankee Doodle with birthday lyrics to your Grampa Joe on his big day. I'm not sure why the plaque was placed in such an odd spot. There doesn't seem to be much foot traffic through here and cars driving by will never notice it if they don't know its here already. Perhaps their kindergarten was in this spot all those years ago. So the next time your friends and loved-ones favor you with "Happy Birthday To You," the world's longest song when it's in your honor and you've got nowhere to look but the cake, remember the Hill sisters of Louisville.