The Run For The Roses A Derby Day to Relish and Remember

The Run For The Roses A Derby Day to Relish and Remember

By Constance Chatfield-Taylor

Ritual ruled my life for so many years until my mother passed away at the age of 100—especially what to do on weekends. And that afternoon, I had not thought to make plans, because for years I never questioned what I would be doing. It’s moments like that when you alternately kick yourself and feel sad for what once was.

The first Saturday in May meant a Kentucky Derby party with a gathering of old ladies who really knew horses. Some had been owners and trainers. Others would come in late from Gold Cup or the Middleburg Races having been officials, rushing into the study where the TV audio was always up high for all the old ears.

“Come in, come in!” you’d hear above the blare.

If you wanted to concentrate, you watched in the big kitchen with a walk-in fireplace, where the unspoken rule was no talking But the old ladies, with their bourbons and deviled eggs and sliced Virginia ham biscuits, were in the study, and that’s where I wanted to be, sometimes sitting on the floor, on the arm of an old chintz sofa, or moving a Jack Russell aside so I could share a footstool.

But on this first Saturday in May, I found myself with no ritual, no party, no responsibility. I was working on a rental in a small house in Upperville. The new owner of the adjacent house was helping the old-time resident banjo player neighbor remove an old wire fence on the edge of his lawn.

My friend Kathryn dropped by. “Hello, Jimmy!” I heard through the open door as she greeted the banjo player and came in as I was trying to pull up the Derby telecast on my phone.

“Let’s ask new neighbor John if he has TV or Wi-Fi,” I suggested as we walked out to find him.

“Are you all watching the Derby?” I asked hopefully. Nope, never do, was the response. John reported no Wi-Fi.

“Jimmy, do you have TV?” I knew he watched old VHS tapes and had mountains of movies. He also played bluegrass with his friends every weekend under the pine trees by the shed. “Sure, I got an antenna,” he said. “What channel?”

He kicked the dirt off his boots and went inside his tiny house and came back out and said, “come on in.”

I glanced at his living room, where three banjos in cases took up most of the floor space. Three deer heads with antlers, perfectly mounted on dark paneling, hung over the fireplace. Old guns hung in a polished rack on the opposite wall. The curtains were drawn and little light filtered through.

We crowded into a bedroom with an ancient TV. Kathryn sat in the only chair, Jimmy and John stood in the doorway, I perched on the edge of the single bed. Jimmy wondered if they would play “My Old Kentucky Home.” I looked around at the paneled walls and impeccably neat room, with his movies stacked neatly in a bookcase.

We each picked two horses and listened to the announcer as they made their way to the post. We oohed and ahhhed at the colors, the odds, the jockeys – and watched the race, yelling for our horses.

Jimmy, who didn’t care at all about the Kentucky Derby, had the winner, so we all congratulated him and promised him his quarters. “I’m not a betting man,” Jimmy said as he turned the money down, and trooped back out into the sunshine. I went back to my painting and John and Jimmy went back to pulling out fence posts.

Later I thought about it. I had watched the Derby with three friends. We were clueless about the entries, there was no dining room table laden with race day goodies, no bourbon in clinking glasses. No reunion of knowledgeable old ladies. They were all gone, one by one. One year, one of them had been there for the Derby, missed the Preakness and died before the Belmont. And now they were all gone.

Still, being in the tiny bedroom, with paint on my hands, the men with work gloves and t-shirts watching from the doorway—it was OK. It was wonderful. We made a party where there was none ten minutes earlier. We laughed and cheered and shared a moment on a sunny Saturday in May.

Maybe this year I’ll make a plan, and maybe I won’t. Life.