Page 20 - June 2007 The Game

20 The Game, June 2007 Canada’s Thoroughbred Racing Newspaper
The Kentucky Derby from ‘Billionaire’s Row’
by Peter Valing
Elvis came through the radio and beers through a hatch in the trunk as we backtracked our way to Louisville on a warm Nashville night. The plane had been rerouted due to thunderstorms in Dallas, our luggage had been lost and the cold Pabst Blue Ribbon would have to serve in lieu of sleeping bags.
We awoke in horseman’s paradise. The campsite was encircled by paddock-like fencing and the dirt road leading to our cabin was named after Seattle Slew. The 133rd Kentucky Derby was taking place in two days, less than 15km from us. What did it matter that we cooked and ate without utensils over a fire fed by foraging in marshlands behind our site? There was plenty of long, bluegrass with which to scrape the mud off our shoes.
On the day of the Oaks it was raining. Churchill Downs was grey, but grand. My friends dropped me off in the parking lot and sped away to the Ali museum and to find suitable places to celebrate the evening of our friend O’Malley’s stag. With my press pass around my neck, I took an elevator to the Press Room. I stepped out onto the veranda and had to take a seat. From atop the clubhouse, it was an awesome sight, especially for a guy used to the modesties of Vancouver’s Hastings track.
Eavesdropping on the adjacent conversation, it became obvious that one of the two gents was from the Form. The other silver-haired and bow-tied gent looked as though he had penned his first story when War Admiral won the Crown. I went inside to shore up my confidence on the complimentary Southern buffet.
“Who are you with?” asked someone behind me as I brought the first morsel up to my mouth.
“The Game - Canada’s thorough- bred...”
“I think you only have access to the Auxiliary Press Centre,” the man interrupted.
I was stunned, speechless. All the suits at the tables seemed to be watching. I made as though to take my plate to the garbage. “It’s O.K., son, finish up. But remember for next time.”
The Auxiliary Press Centre was on the ground floor and was packed. An army of turf scribes were typing away in cubicles as the races passed by on the big screen. Panic struck. With my pen and pad, I couldn’t compete. I walked out the door, consoling myself with the fact that Hunter S. Thomson, too, had no clue on what to write about the first Derby he attended.
Photos clockwise from top left
• A view from the top!
• Rooftop snipers
• Jerry Mahoney
• Bill’s
BC Racing Commission card
• Jerry Mahoney (left) & Bill Stoddard (right) flank The Game’s Peter Valing who is holding his souvenier printout of the 2007 Kentucky Derby photo finish.
head. Eventually, a kind soul tossed me his raincoat as he drove by.
The next day, the roof was still empty two races before the Derby. The stands and the infield, however, were jammed. I tried to locate my friends in the infield, but realized that this would be possible only through the binoculars of the sniper who was setting up his rifle beside me. The security noose was tightening by the minute – Special Service types in black suits, soldiers and state troopers.
Shortly before the race, Mr. “O.K., Son” entered the Timer’s room. He had a clipboard and was checking credentials. “We’ve been asked to clear the roof for the Derby.” As there were only two state troopers, Jerry, his boss, Bill, and myself in the room, I felt that my luck had finally run out. “Well, we’re all ready in here,” said Bill. “Ready to roll.” Bill had done photofinishing at Hastings during the 50s, loved Canada and its horse scene and kept his old Canadian racing documents and Canadian SIN card in his rubber-band-wrapped wallet. He knew how much I wanted to stay with the crew.
“All right then, this room is cleared,” said O.K,.Son. “But no one can leave until the Derby is over and the Queen has left.”
This would have worked for me had not the state troopers expressed a strong desire to wager on the race. “Say, Peter, we can’t wager in uniform. Would you lay down some bets for us?” asked one. Luck being a strange animal, and with us pushing it with the beer in the car, etc, I figured that a Southern cop onside couldn’t hurt. The troopers wrote their picks in my pad, gave me some money and I scooted down a ladder which Bill had assured me would not be monitored.
And it wasn’t - on the way down. On the way up was a different story. “Your credentials don’t give you access to the Timer’s box,” said the security guard. “But Jerry sent me down to get him some water and an apple before the race,” I replied. (That was all Jerry consumed during the time I had known him, and he had asked me to fetch these things for him before). After a few back and forths over the walkie-talkie, he let me up.
“Guys, I need you to stand farther from the windows. I don’t want you near the cameras when the Derby’s off and running,” instructed Jerry. The troopers and myself backed away from the wall of sunshine. “I’ve gotta be switched on here for the next two minutes.” I could hear “My Old Kentucky Home” rise up from the crowd. One of the troopers hummed along behind me. Bill was positioned at a computer, preparing backups. I had $10 on Stormello, a 30-to-1 long shot for the hell of it.
They started calling the horses to the gate. Jerry raised his binoculars, and I furtively inched forwards, hoping not to obstruct the image which would soon be beamed around the world.
Two and a half minutes later, after confirming Street Senses’ victory with the stewards, Jerry put down the phone and smiled, “Now I can enjoy the race,” he said, as he pressed the replay button.
Outside, the energy was building for the next day. I fumbled with my press pass and noticed that next to the Auxiliary Press Centre sticker was another which read Roof Top.
Up the elevator I went again, hoping not to run into Mr. “O.K., son”. A security guard pointed to a door and I walked up some dusty stairs and arrived on the clubhouse roof. It was empty. I walked to the ledge and my heart struck twelve like a church bell. The view, the breeze, even the rain – it was all mine! I smoked a cigarette, and then noticed a door ajar.
Inside the room was a man tending to an ancient-looking machine. “Got it!” he yelled, pressing a gadget with his thumb. Then he moved towards a computer and began to type. The telephone rang, he said something into the receiver and lit up a cigar stub. When he wheeled around in his chair, I was standing in the room. “Well, hello there,” he said, exhaling smoke. “What can I do for you?” I talked fast: “I’m Peter...from Canada...here to write about the Derby...a stranger in a strange land...hahaha...”
He folded his hands against his belly and laughed. He motioned me to sit down. “Stay, stay, it gets pretty lonely here, and I’m having trouble keeping my eyes open. The nerves get me. Twenty- one Kentucky Derbies I’ve photo-finished and timed, and I still can’t eat or sleep properly days before the race. My Bible’s over there in the bag with my rosary. I always keep ‘em close on Derby weekend.”
Race after race finished below me, and between the watching of the horses and listening to Jerry, I had lost all inclination to wager. Mastering chance and material gain meant little when seated on top of the world. In the minutes between races, Jerry plied me with stories about the
tracks he had worked and the situations and characters he had encountered along the way. Once, Pete Rose had playfully punched him after an argument over a horse. “I told Pete to bet on Bound, and when Bound came in he asked me how I knew. I said: ‘I picked Bound because I was Bound to lose the Pick Six.’ Pete laughed, called me a wise guy and punched me a good one on the shoulder.”
Over the years, such screen characters as Joe Pesci and Dennis Hopper have popped up to Jerry’s perch to say hi, visits which Jerry enjoys. Still, he lamented the absence of starlets. “Look at all those beautiful ladies down there,” he said, taking a sweep of the stands with his binoculars. “Don’t they know that Jerry’s up here?”
And then it was back to work with a stop watch in one hand and controller in the other, timing the fractions and shooting the finish line images which would appear on the screens outside and, minutes later, on simulcast screens around the world.
“So, what do you say, Jerry? Can I come up to join you for the Derby?” I asked after the Oaks was over.
“It might be difficult, Peter. Security will be really tight with the Queen attending, and my boss, he’s gonna be here too. But give it a try - I’d be happy to have you.”
With tomorrow’s possibilities in mind, I waited in the rain for the parking lot shuttle. Hundreds waited alongside me, and when the skies really broke open, it was a communal shower. Suits drenched, dresses drenched; dye from hats ran with makeup into pools of water around bare feet. In the lot, I waited in a Porta-Potty for my friends to show. When that became unbearable – and unsafe due to the smoke in my hand – I waited outside with a shred of a cardboard box over my
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