Churchill Downs
The famous Kentucky Derby happens the first Saturday in May right here in Louisville at Churchill Downs. One of our neighbors here at the RV park told us that this was one of the tourist spots we should not miss. They have several nice tours. So we grabbed our Garmin Nuvi – found Churchill Downs and pressed ‘Go.’
Pretty impressive place. Although they have plenty of horse-racing in the Spring and Fall. It’s all about The Greatest Race! A tradition since 1875 – the running of a 2-minute race!
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See this year’s Kentucky Derby video.
We signed up for the ‘Behind the Scenes’ tour. First stop – the jockeys’ locker room and their ‘Silk’ room. These are all the shirts that the jockeys wear representing the owners of the horses. This is how they fly the owners’ colors. Pretty bright room eh?
Here are the signature Twin Spires.
And here’s a panorama of the track. Click it to see a larger image .. then use your Back button to return.
More behind the scenes .. this is the view that the announcers get:
I think my favorite part was the large caricature paintings of all the people and horses who have been involved in the Derby throughout the years. Here’s just a small piece of one of the murals:
And – a self-portrait of the artist:
And, having our tour guide point out some of the personalities portrayed made it all the more enjoyable
Louisville Slugger Ever since Lynne and John went to the Louisville Slugger factory, Jim has wanted a bat engraved with Geeks on Tour. Pretty cool huh?
Now *that’s* a bat!
The number of tourists at the Louisville Slugger factory was astounding! Tours of the factory left every 5 minutes and had at least 25 people in each. Did you know that a major league hitter can go thru 120 bats in one season?! There was a "rush" order on the production line for Florida Marlins short stop Hanley Ramirez.
It was an interesting neighborhood too.