14A SUNDAY, APRIL 28, 2024 COURIER JOURNAL In A Bind? Call Klein! The Number One Solution To Every Plumbing Problems. Whether you need a simple faucet installation or complete sewer line replacement, we offer a wide range of residential and commercial plumbing services to meet your needs. www.KleinPlumbers.com I (502) 467-2555 CJ-39002387 The Kentucky Derby was the second of just three races on May 17, 1875, and to the modern 14-race specta- tor, that may seem like a short day, espe- cially when you consider that four-mile journey to the track. But races run quite as smooth- ly back then. Auction-like gambling For one thing, gambling was more complicated.
The Louisville Jockey Club printed programs for that day of racing, but they were more of a guide than a resource with handicapping charts. Those charts would come much later. (Oliver Lewis, the Black jockey who won the Kentucky Derby, went on to develop those after he retired from riding.) Even so, the words, horses and infor- mation listed among those 1875 pam- phlets could have seemed just as com- plex as the numbers and stats circulated today. One in four Kentuckians was illit- erate in the 1870s. To wager, men gathered in the for an auction-like environment, Whitehead explained.
The idea was to divide the wagered total between the winners in a manner loosely compara- ble to the modern lottery system. Imag- ine a packed room with men shouting over one another to put their money on their favorite horse. this is very, very unfamiliar to the kind of betting that we do (today) and not necessarily terribly democratic and or Whitehead said. As gentile and upscale as Clark might have envisioned his track, this was still 19th-century Kentucky. Think and even gun-toting without the protec- tions of security.
Alexander Gra- ham Bell invent the metal detector for another six years, and it would be decades before that technol- ogy evolved into the meticulous securi- ty screening of 21st-century events. would have still been pret- ty lawless at that Whitehead said. Louisville Jockey Club might have been a little lawless in terms of the atmosphere, Life in the and at Churchill Downs The Kentucky Derby could be called a club, and while women did attend, they needed a male escort. would have restricted areas where they were permitted to Whitehead said. the betting shed was out because there was gambling or swearing or smoking all the things women in the 1870s had to conveniently forget They could only watch the race from the pavilion in the grandstand or a select few could enjoy the Club- where high society gathered.
Think of this as the 19th-century equivalent of the famed where only the most elite VIPs watch the race and enjoy the luxuries of the day. But not the luxury Chanel make-up artists in the powder room or Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto carving tuna for sashimi might expect today. Instead, the original renderings from The Clubhouse indicate it was the only place on Churchill Downs property with which was ver- sion of indoor restrooms. It had a kitch- en onsite for food service, which would have been groundbreaking. Spectators on the track and a race without a starting gate One thing that changed at Churchill Downs over a century and a half is guests a variety of expe- riences at price points.
The bottom-shelf experience the famed party zone in the center of the track known as the has wel- comed guests since the Kentucky Derby. For decades people to the for a good time, but until a $12 million, 4K video board was added in 2014, many never saw a horse the entire day. That necessarily the case in 1875. At the time, Churchill Downs have a tunnel that ferried people from the to the grandstand. So, to reach the grassy the crowd would have to walk across the track to get to the space in the center.
Photographs from the 1920s show spectators standing on the track while races run. Reasonably, Whitehead said, crowd members could have lingered on the track during the Kentucky Der- by, too. Even more unbelievable than that is how the Louisville Jockey Club began races before the starting gate was intro- duced in the 1930s. Instead, workers would line up the horses and hold them by the rump in po- sition, Whitehead explained. In those days, a drummer cued the release of the horses and the beginning of the race.
As Aristides charged the line, he would have run beneath a wire that racing stewards used to eyeball the win- ner. The phrase to the dates back to this common method of 19th- century horse racing. technology come on the scene until 1890. 150 years of changes On May 17, 1875, there was no way to know that 149 years later, vision would grow into the longest, continu- ously held sporting event in the country. Throughout its history, Churchill Downs has existed as an ever-changing microcosm for the advancements of so- ciety.
The track and the Kentucky Derby have sustained themselves by evolving to stay relevant. Small changes, like adding that start- ing gate and allowing women to roam the stands and place bets, have turned the Kentucky Derby into a phenome- non. No one who attended the Ken- tucky Derby would recognize the track today, but Whitehead said you can make that argument for every race in the early 20th century. The grandstand had already come down and the twin spires had gone up. The tunnel to the re- shaped the whole experience when it was built in 1937.
The next year, collect- ible mint julep glasses that the homes of Derby enthusiasts made their appearance. The star-studded red carpet exist for the half of Derby history as Hollywood was in its infancy. Though nothing may look the same, the thrill when the horses thunder around the track remains. That emotion waned in a cen- tury and a half and likely for gen- erations to come. Reach features columnist Maggie Menderski Jockey Club, original building of Churchill Downs.
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