Kentucky Derby with Noah: Thurby 145

Thurby was a great day at the races for those of us that came in early: Kevin, Chris, Tracy and me. Momma, April, Kyle, Missy, Kelly and Wes would not make it up until Friday (Oaks). The weather was perfect (no rain and not too hot) and we had tickets to trackside thanks to Chris and Davie (Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! You two are awesome. Let's try Mardi Gras again. No drug dealers or hookers next time).

Chris, Tracy, Kevin and I had flown up to Cincinnati that Thursday morning and then gotten an Uber ride to Bill's condo which is about an hour's drive. Poor Uber drivers. They do not know where they are going until they accept the ride on their app. We talked once he got to us and made sure he was ok driving us to Louisville before we loaded up the car. He was good. Just broken up with his girlfriend. No other job to put him on a timetable so off we went. An hour plus later and after we unloaded all of our luggage at Bill's condo, we had our Uber driver stick around and take us to Churchill Downs. I had thought about asking him to stay all weekend and be our driver but Kevin talked me out of that idea. Our Uber driver's name was Konstantine. He was awesome and had an awesome name.

Chris and Davie met us at the gate with tickets so we got in free. We partied with them in the stands pretty close to the Finish Post and had an amazing time until I smoked with Bill and forgot about three hours of the evening. Thanks a lot, Bill. DS, I am back to once a year with you.

I vaguely remember the worst Uber driver ever - a kid that talked non-stop about himself, his ex girlfriends and their $1million+ net worths and almost turned his vehicle over while taking an interstate exit on two wheels. We also ate at a restaurant on the river which I do not remember but was told it was bad. I kinda remember everyone in the Uber crazy rollercoaster ride being all nice to the kid driver/killer and thinking "Why are they being so nice to this idiot". I did tell him to slow down as he was about to turn his truck over on the interstate exit ramp. I could not have gotten out of that Uber fast enough (although I was in slow motion thanks to Bill). I have no doubt that kid will wreck and kill people one day.

This first picture is before we entered the track and is near the entrance to the museum. I took a photo of a group of women and got an amazing photo of them with horses running in the background on the television display. She took our photo and got "Restrooms & Concessions". Admittedly, mine was luck; but why couldn't I have had better luck with her getting our background. This was a pretty solid foreshadowing of my poor luck picking horses for the entire three horse racing days (Thurby, Oaks and Derby).