“Check this out—I got you, man.”
He was exhibiting me his telephone, which had an image of me photographing him earlier that day. I didn’t bear in mind him, nor did I recall already having stopped to take his image, however he was actually proud he’d “gotten me back.”
A handful of ft from the place we have been standing, a trio was posing for a digital camera mounted to a robotic arm at a photobooth sponsored by Ford: a person in a plaid sport coat with a white boutonniere, and a pair of girls in turbulent neon orange and blue-ombre clothes with matching hats and luggage. The purse that went with the blue costume was lined in a type of artificial fuzz, nearly like a Pomeranian’s fur. Derby outfits may be raunchy feats of energy clashing: an ornate, psychedelic reskinning of genteel nation membership prep. I later realized the robotic arm might need been one of many identical ones they use within the Ford Louisville Meeting Plant, a number of miles down I-65.
My dad couldn’t make it to the Derby this 12 months—he was due at his fiftieth faculty reunion. He usually saves all of his change all year long in an enormous glass jar on his dresser, then cashes it the primary week of Could and bets the sum on the observe. Lately he’s been devising complicated Superfecta bets for the principle race—wagering on which horses will take the highest 4 spots, so as—together with a sequence of backups and hedges.
Final 12 months we didn’t get fortunate, however this 12 months one of many combos was successful. Counterintuitively, the payout was lower than the entire we wagered within the first place: all 4 of the highest finishers—Sovereignty, Journalism, Baeza, and Closing Gambit—had excellent odds. We received however didn’t win. I heard this criticism from one other particular person earlier within the afternoon. Regardless of the rain turning the observe right into a sludge pile, typically a recipe for chaos, the favorites stored successful all day.
