Puttin’ On My Derby Hat
Reading the next morning about the Kentucky Derby is almost better than seeing the race. From year to year it’s hard to keep a dry eye, as there’s always a story to break your heart, which I suppose is the real truth behind everything in life.
Life is a heartbreaker and the Derby is an annual restorative.
Mike Smith (how’s that for an American name?), this year’s winning jockey came back to ride after breaking his back in a spill at Saratoga in 1998. Not very many come back successfully after that and those who do are apt to flinch in tight spots. Thoroughbred racing is a business of tight spots among thundering hoofs, goggles splattered and face stung with whatever the track throws up. Spills under those circumstances have a way of replaying in your mind and that edge, that seeing the momentary lane and driving through it has no room for ghosts, it’s temerity in spades. Son of a jockey, Mike began riding races in New Mexico at eleven years old, which makes this first Derby victory …