Derby memories: The family trip of a lifetime for 2002's running

In the absence of a Kentucky Derby renewal this first Saturday in May, Horse Racing Nation writers are looking back at some of their favorite runnings throughout the week.

Kentucky Derby memories for this writer begin in the early 1980s and the 20-minute trip with my father and “uncle” from south San Diego across the Tijuana border to Caliente Race Track. While the details of those childhood Derbys are hazy, seared into the memory are the giant chalkboards on the walls of the Caliente “foreign book,” littered pari-mutuel tickets, the annual souvenir mint julep cup, tobacco smoke and a cast of free-wheeling men that captured a young boy’s imagination. Beer-soaked tales were often overhead of one day going to Louisville and witnessing the Kentucky Derby in person. This is what made it all the more special when I helped finally make it happen for my father and “uncle” some 20 years later. Horse racing became largely lost to me during my high school years as a three-sport athlete and on into college. It wasn’t until earning a journalism degree, and the subsequent opportunity to cover the 1999 Del Mar meeting for a suburban San Diego newspaper, that the wheels were put in motion for my greatest of Kentucky Derby memories. While at Del Mar, the horse racing bug bit quickly. It was less than five months later, when at the age of 25, I packed a U-Haul with my 1988 Mazda RX7 in tow and departed the hippy enclave of San Diego’s Ocean Beach for the bluegrass of Kentucky and a job at the Thoroughbred Times. I arrived in Lexington in February having somehow only been pulled over twice during the near cross-country trip -- once near Hope, Ark., and the other outside of Nashville. Both times, state troopers questioned what a U-Haul pulling a car with California plates was doing all the way out there. Satisfied I wasn’t transporting drugs into razorback country or the Volunteer State, I was sent on my way each time. Within three months of arrival, I found myself under the Twin Spires of Churchill Downs to witness Monarchos win the 2001 Kentucky Derby in the second-fastest time in history, 1:59.97. I soon became determined to share the incredible experience with those that helped get me there -- to finally try and make reality those dreams of yore. So it was that 12 months later my father, Vic Ryan Sr.; mother Charlotte; “Uncle” Leonard Dowdy and his girlfriend Odie, all hailing from Chula Vista, Calif.; and two rowdy older sisters found themselves in the Kentucky bluegrass for the first time. It was a glorious time. Each noted it was just as they had imagined. We toured the famed horse farms of central Kentucky; visited Keeneland, where in the empty sales pavilion I shared to to my intrigued Uncle Dowdy the known bidding tricks of D. Wayne Lukas; and saw Cigar and John Henry at the Kentucky Horse Park. We also patronized our fair share of Lexington watering holes. As I was on duty Kentucky Derby Day 2002, outside of a brief visit early on the card, my family was on its own. My parents, Uncle Dowdy and Odie were seated on the apron at the top of the stretch in seats I had purchased, while my sisters were lost in a sea of humanity in the Churchill Downs infield. War Emblem would go on to win what would be one of the least exciting Derbys of recent vintage. Making his first start for trainer Bob Baffert after being purchased privately by the late Prince Ahmed bin Salman’s The Thoroughbred Corp., War Emblem broke in front and was never threatened when pulling off the upset. I’m not sure how much of the race my family actually saw. Probably not much. It didn’t seem to matter. Later, hearing the tales of their Derby day experience brought no shortage of pride. It was an experience never to be repeated. My mother passed four years later from cancer and my Uncle Dowdy, the inspiration of it all, died several years later after falling into ill health. While those loved ones may no longer be here, this Derby memory will remain with me forever.