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May 09, 2005
post time
oh, my poor neglected little blog. it's a good thing that this blog is not a child or one of those pocket pets that were so popular back in the early 90's or they would surely be long since deceased by now. but lucky for me both children and pocket pets have long since lost their popularity and so the only thing that's left for me to try to kill, besides my brain cells, is this blog. but fear not faithful readers...oh wait, that's right. nobody reads this any more because i haven't posted anything on it in almost a month. well, good this way i won't feel so bad about writing a little something about horse racing. specifically, the kentucky derby, which i watched this past first saturday in may with some of my fellow equine enthusiasts at leela and mike's house. i love everything about the derby. the clothes, the drink (mint julep mmmm) the fact that it takes place in kentucky, a state where dueling is still legal method of resolving ownership disputes but wearing white after labor day is considered very bad form. my love for the kentucky derby is very deep and very nearly illegal.let me just begin by confessing that, not unlike a bookie, i know next to nothing about horses or handicapping races or how far a furlong is. and i'm not really a huge horse racing fan. in fact, i have been to the track one time in my entire life, placed one $2 bet on one horse and walked home with $56 in my pocket. which i took to mean that i should either go to the track and bet alot more often, or quit while i'm ahead and never ever return to the track again. so far, i have opted for the latter. unfortunately, thanks to off track betting i'm currently in for about 13 g's to some guy named "freddie the mole." however, that having been said, i honestly cannot remember the last time i missed a kentucky derby. i remember my first derby party though. it was in grand junction, colorado. many people don't know this but there's a tremendous thouroughbred industry there on the western slope of the rocky mountains. of course, they don't so much race them as they grind them up into dog food, hot dogs and, of course, glue. but i digress. as i was saying, the first derby party i ever attended was when i was six. our neighbors accross the street were from louisville so naturally they had a huge derby party at their house every year and, my father being a minister, we took every opportunity we could to drink booze and gamble away our life savings as a family. in our house, this is what we liked to refer to as "quality time." after we moved we tried unsuccessfully to throw derby parties of our own. unfortunately they were almost always cut short when my mother, already plowed from the 3 mint juleps that she'd had for breakfast and the 5 that constituted "lunch" would begin ogling the jockys as the horses came out of the paddock and then berating my father, telling him "you're half the man that willie shoemaker is, and he's only half a man as it is!" at this point the party would generally dissipate before the race even started. however, despite our ill-fated attempts to introduce public intoxication and legalized gambling to my father's parishoners we still managed to make it through the race every year and every year my father would drag my mother off to bed at "post:05" re-assuring us that my mother was simply "not feeling well." and that perhaps we might want to pray for her in church the next morning while she was "recouperating".
thus began my long love affair with the kentucky derby. since then, i have been to churchhill downs (which, even if you don't like horse racing, you should do because it is a gas! but that's another story.) a thouroughbred farm, started growing my own mint specifically for julep purposes and spent i don't know how much money on clothes just to wear for the one day out of the year when i can watch between 13 and 19 "half-men" straddle a one ton, one horsepower...um...horse and tear down one of the most storied furlongs of dirt in the world for two and a half minutes of mind numbing exhileration. oh, and the race is not that bad either. now if you'll excuse me, i am not feeling well. i think that i may need a little time to recouperate. in the meantime, here's a recipe for mint juleps.
kentucky straight bourbon
sugar
mint
water (optional)
2 asprin
mix bourbon, sugar and mint to taste
get off the bathroom floor in the morning, take asprin and pray for death or pancakes.
Posted by adamgraves at 10:04 PM | Comments (178)