The Bluegrass and Beyond

Phil Needham didn’t make it to Churchill Downs to see the horse he bred and foaled pull a stunning upset in the Kentucky Derby.

He had his own race to win.

Mine That Bird became the second-biggest long shot ever to win the Derby, covering the 1¼ miles Saturday in a little more than two minutes and two seconds.

A few hours earlier, Needham, 67, rode his bicycle 123 miles in six hours to win his age group in the 18th annual Calvin’s Challenge road race, which drew 210 cyclists to Springfield, Ohio.

Had the Georgetown resident not wanted to be done in time to see the Derby on television, he would have entered the bicycle race’s main event, where he set the record for his age group two years ago by riding 225 miles in 12 hours.

Needham’s racing partner was Bena Halecky, 50, of Lexington, whose 123-mile performance won her age group. She was named the best overall female racer.

“I went up to Louisville last Monday to see the horse work and meet the new owners and trainer, and I was very pleased with what I saw,” Needham said. “But the chances, you know, were very remote, 50-1. So because we had trained and planned for this race, we went to Ohio.”

It wasn’t the first time Needham has been wrong about Mine That Bird.

The Birdstone colt was athletic and strong. Needham’s wife, Judy, thought the yearling was promising. But Needham and his business partners decided to sell him.

“When the partners agreed to sell, we had the right to buy, but we let him go,” Needham said. “He brought $9,500, which was next to nothing. People spend millions trying to create a Derby horse.”

Needham had better instincts about Mine That Bird’s mother.

When Needham and Bill Betz ended their thoroughbred partnership last year, they decided to sell the mare Mining My Own at auction. But when the bids started coming in, Needham thought they were too low. He jumped in and ended up buying her for $8,000.

Needham and Halecky had been friends for years. Halecky, a Procter & Gamble executive, had urged him to buy P&G stock. “He said, ‘If I’m going to invest in your business, you need to invest in mine,” Halecky said. So she kicked in $4,000 for half interest in the mare.

As Needham and Halecky raced Saturday, the Derby was on their minds. They considered it an omen that their race was called Calvin’s Challenge and Mine That Bird was being ridden by jockey Calvin Borel.

“And then we kept seeing birds in front of us on the road and I kept yelling to Bena, ‘Mine That Bird!’” Needham said.

After their race, Needham and Halecky headed back to Lexington, stopping at a sports bar near Cincinnati to eat dinner and watch the Derby. The place was noisy, and the big-screen TV was hard to see. So it took them a few moments to realize that the impossible had happened.

“Finally, Phil looked at me and said, ‘We just won the Kentucky Derby!’” Halecky said. Soon their cell phones were ringing as friends called the congratulate them.

Several of their Bluegrass Cycling Club friends, who gathered to watch the Derby at Keeneland, bet and won big on the horse. But Halecky had put only a $2 bet on him. Needham didn’t bet anything, although his wife, who had always known better, put down $100 to win.

“It was one of the best Saturdays that anyone could ever have,” Needham said. “It’s just unbelievable.”

Since ending his partnership with Betz, Needham has formed Needham Thoroughbreds, with interest in about 15 horses, including Mining My Own.

Needham had planned to focus more on his cycling.

He took up the sport a decade ago and has been riding competitively for seven years. He was sixth in his age group in the 24-mile time trial at the 2007 masters nationals. A first-place finish in last year’s Bluegrass State Games made him eligible to compete this August at the Senior Games in San Francisco, where he plans to enter the time trial and the road race.

“My goal is to be number one in my age group in the country,” he said.

But his 40-year career in thoroughbreds seems to have gotten a second wind.

The $8,000 mare he and Halecky own could now be worth millions if they sell her — or even sell part ownership in her — and perhaps even more in the long run if they keep her and breed her well.

Mine That Bird was the mare’s first foal. She also has a 2-year-old in training and a foal by her side, and she is pregnant with another. At age 8, Mining My Own could have 15 more years of productive life ahead, Needham said.

“Bena wants to continue to own her and have the fun; my wife wants to continue to own her and have the fun,” he said. “My best business sense tells me to keep at least 25 percent. I have to review that with my partner. I have to let the dust settle a little.”

As the dust was beginning to settle Monday afternoon, and it was beginning to rain, Halecky and Needham met near Georgetown for a bike ride through the countryside. They said they planned to ride 20-something miles, maybe more. After all, they had a lot to talk about.

It was a Kentucky Derby as hard to predict as the weather, with a field of long-shots, two high-profile scratches and a sloppy track.

So it seemed only fitting that Calvin Borel would charge to victory on 50-1 longshot Mine that Bird just a day after winning the Oaks aboard Rachel Alexandra by more than 20 lengths. Both were the second-biggest winning margins ever in their 135-year-old races.

Borel, whose childlike glee after winning his first Derby aboard Street Sense in 2007 captured the world’s affection, was an emotional volcano, rocking back and forth on his horse on the way to the winner’s circle and high-fiving everyone in sight.

His bettors were rocking, too: A $2 wager to win on Mine that Bird paid a cool $103.

It was a joyous outcome for a Derby that seemed all day to be dimmed by gloom about the weather, the economy and a recent history of horse breakdown tragedies.

Thankfully, no horses broke down. And despite predictions of a Derby downpour, the overnight rains ended before Churchill Downs’ gates opened. There was no need for the ponchos and plastic many spectators brought to the track. Temperatures remained cool but comfortable under lead-gray skies. There wasn’t even enough afternoon sunshine to burn the ample cleavage in the grandstands.

The only unhappy people seemed to be the drink vendors. Mint juleps were selling better than beer, but even they weren’t selling that well. One vendor’s mid-morning pitch: “Mint juleps! Mint juleps! Breakfast of champions.”

Fans posed for photos in front of the new statue honoring Barbaro, the 2006 Derby winner who was euthanized after months of trying to recover from an injury in the Preakness.

Emotions were even more raw as an undercard race for fillies was renamed the Eight Belles, after the courageous filly who broke down and had to be destroyed at the end of last year’s race after running as hard as she could with the big boys. Before that race began, a bell tolled eight times.

Another cloud hanging over the Derby to some extent was the economic recession. The crowd of 153,563 was the seventh-largest, down from 157,700 last year. The previous day’s Oaks day attendance was 104,867, that event’s fourth-largest.

The betting-window lines were almost as long as those at the women’s restrooms, but it was hard to tell if people were betting as much as usual. Some vendors thought fans were cutting back on food and drink.

Nahru Lampkin of Detroit, who over the past 15 years has become something of a Derby celebrity by sitting in the infield playing bongo drums and rapping to passersby, said his tips were off about 20 percent.

He was working hard for every dollar pitched into his plastic bucket, rhyming about the pretty women walking by and offering advice to college students: “Stay in school, don’t be dumb or you could end up playing this drum.”

On the other end of the Derby’s social scale, gourmet smells filled the Jockey Suites, but the crowd seemed a little lighter than usual.  In the halls of rooms with brass door plates identifying them as the venues of banks, railroads and big horse farms, regulars said there was less corporate entertaining than in the recent past.

Still, the Derby attracted its share of the rich and famous. Sheik Mohammed al Maktoum of Dubai was here to see his two entries, Regal Ransom and Desert Party, fail to break his Derby jinx. And billionaire Alice Walton, daughter of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, was a guest in the Jockey Suites room of Louisville power couple Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson, creators of the 21c Museum Hotel.

The red carpet walk included Motown music greats Aretha Franklin and Mary Wilson, several pro football players and Bobby Flay, the chef made famous by the Food Network.

And if that wasn’t enough celebrity food, two Bravo network Top Chef competitors demonstrated creative hot brown sandwich recipes in the Infield Club. And weight-loss titan Jenny Craig had a horse entered with the ironic name Chocolate Candy.

The Derby fashion parade was as colorful as ever. Some wore seersucker, linen and silk; others denim and khaki. A few showed up in super-hero leotards and tacky hats.

Pete Bush, a Louisville native who now lives in Baton Rouge, La., was decked out in his finest, hoping it wouldn’t rain and ruin his shiny white shoes. “I’d like to wear them more than once,” he said.

The grandstands and luxury suites were filled with shapely women in tight dresses and feathery hats almost big enough for their own Zip Code.

Cynthia Lundeen, who designs hats in Cleveland, Ohio, was in her element, posing for pictures in one of her own creations while her husband followed along in a tuxedo and a big hat of his own.

“On Derby day, everyone is so happy,” Lundeen said. “If the whole world could be like Derby day, the world would be a better place.”

Click on each photo to enlarge:

I first came to the Churchill Downs infield as a college student working for The Associated Press. My story described it as “a place where you are liable to see almost anything – except perhaps the Kentucky Derby.”

I’m sure that by Saturday afternoon parts of the infield will look much as they did on my first visit 30 years ago.

A few thousand rowdy college students and good ol’ boys and girls will get liquored up, lose some of their clothing and, if the weather forecast is accurate, slide around in the mud between thunderstorms.

But some things have changed.

For one, you can actually see the races, thanks to several giant video screens.  For another, the infield is smaller than it used to be – and seems to be getting smaller every year.

A big chunk disappeared when Churchill Downs built a turf track inside the dirt oval. Then temporary tent-topped buildings were put up along the track’s front side for big-ticket corporate entertaining.

This year, yet another chunk of territory has been claimed for high rollers with the creation of the Infield Club.  Tables with folding wooden chairs are arranged beneath tents on grass or brick pavers. There are many bars and food stands, a long line of betting windows and a fancy stage for the band.

The tunnels going into the infield are no longer filled only with people in jeans and shorts carrying tents, folding chairs and coolers. Now, they share the space with men in coats and ties and women in pretty dresses, fancy hats and shoes that wouldn’t last anytime in a drunken mud slide.

Even on the infield’s wild side, around the third turn, the decadence and depravity seems like it will be, well, more organized. There’s an activities area called the CPO — Chief Party Officer — with a dunking booth, twister games and loud music.

(Still, just in case, National Guardsmen on Friday carried a stack of riot shields marked “military police” to a nearby bunker.)

There’s no view of the track from the new fenced-in Infield Club, although you can see the back of the tote board and the top of the grandstand’s famous Twin Spires.

Infield Club admission cost $50 on Oaks day, $150 on Derby day or $175 for both. That’s steeper than infield general admission ($25 on Oaks day, $40 on Derby day), but still a bargain compared to other seating options.

“It’s very nice in here; very comfortable,” said Eileen Hughes of Trenton, N.J., who was here with her husband Douglas for their eighth-straight Derby weekend.

In many past years, the Hughes joined the infield masses and hoped it wouldn’t rain. On this Oaks day, as the clouds kept getting darker, they were feeling good about their investment.

“We looked at clubhouse seats and bleachers with no backs,” Hughes said. “But this is much nicer – and less expensive.”

When they were “young and wild” and growing up in Louisville, sisters Doreen Cornelius and Kena Diggins spent several Derby days in the infield.  They were back Friday for the first time in many years, this time wearing their Oaks day best.

Diggins, who now lives in Pittsburgh, was here for the survivors’ parade that is part of an event by Susan G. Komen for the Cure and Horses and Hope to raise money for breast cancer research and awareness. Churchill Downs is donating between $100,000 and $135,000 to the effort, based on attendance.

“The facilities are wonderful for being outside,” said Cornelius, who was clearly most impressed with the Infield Club’s fancy restroom trailers, with their hardwood floors and real ceramic facilities.  “For women, that’s a major thing.”

But I had to wonder: will the traditional infield crowd someday be squeezed out by creeping gentrification?  Will average joes be able to keep coming to the Derby?

Ken Hanvey of Belleville, Ill., thinks so. He and two buddies have been coming with their canopy and lawn chairs to the same infield spot since 1992.

That was the same year they formed a partnership, SMF of Southern Illinois, to renovate and sell a house.  “We decided the ‘S’ would stand for either smart or stupid, depending on how well we did,” Hanvey said. “For the record, it was ‘stupid.’”

But while the house renovation venture may not have made them much money, it created a Derby tradition they don’t see ending anytime soon.

They said the crowd in their corner of the infield hasn’t changed much in 17 years.  “We have a good time every year we come,” said Gerald Todd.

And why shouldn’t they?  From their spot along the back fence, they can actually see part of the track. If they look beyond the portable toilets, they have a good view of a video screen.

“And we’ve got security right here,” Todd said, pointing to the police and paramedics’ bunker nearby, “just in case things get ugly.”

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Belle of Louisville pilot Mike Fitzgerald, a retired captain of the boat, lines it up for the race’s start. At left in the background is the Belle of Cincinnati. At right, the Delta Queen. Photos/Tom Eblen

LOUISVILLE - When Mike Fitzgerald climbed up to the Belle of Louisville’s pilothouse for his 32nd Great Steamboat Race, he wanted two things - to beat the Delta Queen, and to see her survive to race again.

Fitzgerald knew he had a better chance of getting his first wish than his second.

The Belle had a 22-19 advantage over the Delta Queen in the annual race along the Ohio River, a highlight of Louisville’s Kentucky Derby Festival since 1963.

But after 40 years of exemptions from a federal safety law that prohibits boats with wooden superstructures from carrying passengers overnight, the Delta Queen seemed to have run out of luck.

Congress last week refused to grant another exemption. If Congress doesn’t change its mind by November, when the current exemption expires, the 82-year-old Delta Queen’s days of cruising up and down the Mississippi and Ohio rivers could be over.

“I don’t think there’s anywhere else you can see two national landmarks race and put on a show like this,” said Fitzgerald. “This is a great tradition.”

As it passes the downtown Louisville bridges, the Delta Queen starts gaining on the Belle of Louisville.

With a picture-perfect afternoon and full loads of passengers, the 94-year-old Belle and the Delta Queen lined up Wednesday to race along with the newer Belle of Cincinnati, which isn’t a true steamboat.

Louisville’s wharf has had steamboats since 1811, and six lines once plied the Ohio River from the city. Replaced by newer technology a century ago, they hang on in nostalgia, carrying passengers on pleasure cruises.

The steam calliopes on the Belle of Louisville and Delta Queen were playing while passengers boarded, but were almost drowned out by traffic from the interstate highway beside the wharf. Tractor-trailers, which long ago replaced the trains that had replaced the steamboats, sped by. Some even honked in honor of the floating anachronisms.

The Belle was the last one at the starting line below one of Louisville’s downtown bridges, but the fireman and engineer soon had its high-pressure steam turbines at full power. It rushed ahead of the other two boats. The swoosh, swoosh of the smokestack beat a steady rhythm on the roof, drowning out the partying passengers on the decks below.

Fitzgerald knew the best advantage he had was early speed. The Belle isn’t as powerful as the Delta Queen, but it’s smaller and quicker.

“We want to get a good start,” Fitzgerald said. “We take advantage of whatever we can.”

The Delta Queen, left, and Belle of Cincinnati, speed past the Belle of Louisville in the first leg of the race.

Originally named the Idlewilde, the Belle was built in 1914 to ferry passengers and freight from Memphis. It was renamed the Avalon and ran excursions from Louisville in the mid-1900s. It was headed for the scrap heap in 1962 when Jefferson County bought and restored it.

Fitzgerald grew up not far from the river and began working as a deckhand on the Belle the summer after he graduated from high school. He never left. By his 22nd birthday, Fitzgerald had put in enough time behind the wheel to earn his master’s license. He became captain at age 25 in 1983, becoming the youngest captain on the river, and held the job for 18 years before retiring.

So what does he do in retirement? He works as the boat’s carpenter, and he pilots whenever he can.

As the boats sped past downtown Louisville, Fitzgerald, Captain Mark Doty and the boat’s three other officers in the pilothouse started looking worried. The Delta Queen was steadily gaining on them. Then passing them. Then way out ahead of them.

“She’s doing as well as she can do,” Fitzgerald said out the pilothouse window as the Belle bucked a strong headwind to cruise at perhaps 10 mph. “Unfortunately, that boat’s doing a lot better.”

The Delta Queen was far ahead at the halfway point of the 14-mile race, an island where the boats were to turn around. But when Fitzgerald and Doty looked ahead, they saw a barge taking up their half of the river.

Faced with a perceived safety threat, the Belle’s officers followed an old steamboat racing tradition: They cheated.

“Everything’s fair in steamboat racing,” said retired pilot Charlie Decker, who came along for the ride.

So the Belle turned around, followed by the Belle of Cincinnati. The Delta Queen, far up the river, saw what was happening and made its turn. Suddenly, the tables were turned. But was it legal?

“It’s all up to the judges,” Fitzgerald said with a smile.

“It wasn’t the kind of race I wanted to run,” said Doty, the captain, “but we chose to do the safe thing and turn early.”

The safe thing is at the heart of the Delta Queen’s dilemma. Fans are urging Congress to grant another safety exemption. They’ve set up a Web site - www.savethedeltaqueen.com. And Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson, a big steamboat fan, urged everyone to write their congressional representatives on the Delta Queen’s behalf.

The fear of those who oppose an exemption, though, is a tragic fire in the middle of the night in the middle of a river.

When he paid a visit to the pilothouse near the end of the race, Abramson wasn’t too optimistic. “Everybody I talk to says no,” he said. “But I’m still hopeful.”

Abramson said Derby week wouldn’t be the same without the steamboat race. And without the Delta Queen, there isn’t another true steamboat left that’s a fair match for the Belle.

“In 1985, when I ran for mayor, they asked why I was running, and I said so I could get two tickets to the steamboat race,” Abramson said. “It’s a nice piece of tradition.”

With the wind at its back, the Belle of Louisville maintained its lead, steaming back to downtown Louisville perhaps half a mile ahead of the Delta Queen. But would the judges accept that?

“That’s something we’ll have to take a look at,” said Col. Ray Midkiff of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the judge aboard the Belle.

But when all of the judges conferred later, they decided to give the victor’s trophy - a huge set of gold-painted elk antlers - to the Delta Queen.

Everyone seemed satisfied with the verdict. They thought the Delta Queen deserved a break. They just hope Congress will give it a break, too.

Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson, left, and visits the Belle’s roof and pilot house toward the end of the race. At right is pilot Mike Fitzgerald.

Above photo: After an early turn, the Belle steams home ahead, followed by the Belle of Cincinnati and the Delta Queen in back.