Flatter: Kentucky Derby means learning time for beginners
Long, long ago when I was single and living in Northern California, I would go to a bar in the Marina District of San Francisco called the Pierce Street Annex. As I remember, it was on Fillmore between Greenwich and Pixley, not Pierce Street.
It is long gone, but a sign on the wall is seared in my memory. At least the gist of it. It went something like this:
“Rules for beginners:
“1. Look. Don’t touch.
“2. Ask. Don’t beg.
“3. If the vibe is not right, move on.
“4. If you come back here, don’t be a beginner.”
That ’80s saloon sign brings us to Louisville in the spring of ’22. With all due respect to our regular readers, this column is aimed especially at the visitor who happened on this website after typing “Kentucky Derby” into a search engine. The beginner.
You are not alone. We know. The marvel of modern media is we see the numbers of people who are consuming what we post. Those numbers grow exponentially this time of year. It is like working as Santa Claus in a department store. The calendar says there are 15 more shopping days until Derby day. A lot of kids are jumping on our knees right now.
We find ourselves at that point when certain racing jargon needs to be explained. Some of the abbreviations that are the alphabet soup nourishing this sport have to be fleshed out. CDI. MJC. NYRA. HISA, which supporters say is “high-sa” while haters call it “hiss-sa.” And don’t get me started on PPs, which can stand for either of two things. But just as I think about spelling them out, I sense beginners among us moving on to something else. If the vibe is not right ...
Like so many other pursuits, racing has a culture that can turn its acolytes downright insular. That characteristic can turn off an outsider like the body language of a clustered conversation at a cocktail party.
So to the new reader – the beginner – please accept my apologies in advance for lurching into a language that looks as foreign to most of you as, well, as seeing the words “horse racing” expressed in the Arabic alphabet. (I tried to do that here, but the software crashed.)
Steve Kornacki, the popular MSNBC analyst who will flex his racing knowledge during NBC Sports coverage of the Derby, was on my podcast this week. We got to talking about how the mainstream audience outnumbers us racing geeks for at least two minutes every spring – and even during the week before the big race.
“When I’m talking about doing the 9 a.m. ‘Today’ show, they’re more interested in the spectacle around it,” he said. “Whether it’s the mint juleps or the chance to get together with friends. When I’m on USA this year – last year was NBC Sports Network – I’m aware that it’s much more of a specialized audience. But they’ve told me, the NBC folks, that on Derby day, as you get into that (post-time) window, it’s massive. You’ve got to know at that minute you’ve got the biggest collection of eyeballs you’re going to have all year on a horse race.”
Kornacki also has to deal with this phenomenon during every election. Political wonks may be MSNBC’s core audience most of the year, but every even-numbered November brings a lot of newbies. Now he just substitutes speed figures for the electoral college, and off he goes.
The trick is to present basic information about the Derby without going over anyone’s head or making it appear like information that was dumbed down.
So where to find good information. Hopefully, we do it right here. My colleagues Ed DeRosa and Sara Elbadwi do a good deal of teaching every time they do one of their YouTube videos or live streams. But for anyone who craves more of the basic basics, there are plenty of web pages out there that can be gateways.
“I try to tell people don’t be intimidated,” said Kornacki, 42, who has been playing the horses practically since he was a New England kindergartner. “It’s a very intimidating sport. I had some friends I brought over to Aqueduct just the other day. One of them was asking me, ‘If I take this horse, does it make sense?’ I’ll talk through that maybe it’s a long shot for this reason or maybe it’s a good bet for that reason, but ultimately, don’t listen to me. If I really knew what I was doing, I wouldn’t have to work for a living.”
That may be the most important lesson of all. Eventually, like anything else, it involves just getting in the water and figuring out how to swim. Or at least bringing a paddleboard and a life jacket.
When I lived in Australia, I had to immerse myself in cricket. There were no crash courses. I had the benefit of a radio colleague who was a former player on the national team, but the best way to learn was to dive in the deep end and keep my head above the surface.
Come to think of it, that was how I learned about racing. My dad knew a few basics, but he was no horseplayer. My deep end was the 1973 Triple Crown and the CBS Sports telecasts with the late Jack Whitaker, Frank Wright and Heywood Hale Broun. Oh, and Secretariat, too.
Sometimes worlds can collide and hasten the lessons. In Australia I remember being at the 2005 Caulfield Cup. In the clubhouse I made the acquaintance of a woman who wanted to know more about racing. She seemed to be into analytics, and I explained how important it was to find a horse who had shown he could win going the 1 1/2 miles. She scanned the program, saw one horse had won his last two times going that far and decided that would be her bet.
Railings paid off at 8-1, and with a little beginner’s luck, racing had a new fan. I thought I had myself a new friend. Alas, it was not to be.
I know, I know.
Look. Don’t touch.
Ask. Don’t beg...