The Kentucky Derby a great American event for all
 

I've always been a horse racing fan since going to Monmouth as a little boy with my grandparents but I wanted to share this on here. In a way it is a tribute to this boards founder Steve Byk and his daily effort to grow the sport he loves and has helped me enjoy more.

I had the pleasure of taking my entire family to the Kentucky Derby on Saturday. No one had ever been there before but I wanted to share my love for racing and the Derby with all of them. I acquired the 16 tickets necessary and loaded three generations of my family into a rented van and drove the 2 hours from my brothers home after his recent move to Kentucky. The group encompassed my 92 old father to my 16 year old son and everyone in between. I even volunteered to be the designated driver, stop chuckling those that I know on this board, to assure everyone could have a good time without reservations.
Everyone had a blast and the derby was something different to each of them. My father who made me pick all the horses and place all his wagers I think it was a test to see if I knew what I was doing. After playing five pressure packed $20 WPS show wagers netting a total of $455. I survived and passed his test. For my mother it was a bucket list item made more special by the fact her entire family was together. My brothers and their wives enjoyed gambling, adult beverages, and spending time with family. My nieces and nephews and there significant others had fun drinking, dressing up, and gambling including the family's first ever show parlay. A few who are NYC based said they will probably attend the Belmont because they had so much fun.
I've been very lucky to get to many of this country's great sporting events and the derby is my favorite. The convivial attitude because there are not two opposing sides along with diversity of the crowd is what makes this event different. Yearly I meet DT members Dave (Thunder Gulch) and Brian (B.T.) and we put together group P4's and have a blast partying and rooting together while even cashing a ticket once in a while. The Derby is a great American event and if you love horse racing and want to help show it to others plan a trip and make them fans for life.

Good stuff Tom!! Glad you and your family enjoyed the day together. Sounded almost as good as my day at bws fighting with Tvg. Remember you said you're taking me next year. You can be the driver again if you want :)

Cheers

Great stuff Tom! Thanks for sharing!

Our hotel will be in walking distance. ;) Have you marked as a definite.

Great seeing you as always, and glad to hear everyone had as much fun as it looked like. Bad news for you is we used your share of the late Pick 4 to pay for dinner.

Lol. Who signed?

Tom.

Wow.. This is really nice. What a great thing to do. That you were motivated by anything I do to promote racing is a tremendous compliment. As discussed today with Tim Layden and Saturday on Mad Dog Radio, this is the single best way to grow every kind of participation in the game. Glad it was such a success.

Everything seems to improve every year. Teller lines are long but there is nothing that can really be done because of space constraints and 170,000 people. I make as many wagers as possible by phone.

I signed since I was already in the system making it quicker.

To Churchill's credit, they made a huge error on Friday in trying to get wristbands on everyone at the main entrance. This created a huge bottleneck at the gate. On Saturday, they recognized their mistake and handed them out where you enter your section.

The ticket lines can be a problem. Inexperienced bettors and inexperienced tellers. If you get in the $50 window, you at least get a good teller and usually folks who know how to call a bet quickly. I will say that in a group setting, hanging with my buddies in line and talking to people around me is part of the experience. Just takes the right attitude to accept that's what it is and recognize everyone there is in the same situation trying to have a good day at the Derby.

Biggest complaint is that they gear a lot of things for the folks who want to see the stories instead of looking at the tote board. The main jumbotron did not post the fractions on the Derby, and they rarely even posted the odds while we were making decisions. It also took them 5 minutes after the race was official to flash the prices- once- and then back to the video of some horse running through a field or a replay of the 88 Derby. To make that worse, on Friday it took them half of the day to turn the monitors over the betting windows on, so you had a hard time knowing what odds you were betting.