y and the crowd turned out for it! 
I guess it was the 2nd largest Oaks Day ever, drawing a crowd of 104,867. The Kentucky Oaks is a stakes race for three-year-old Thoroughbred fillies held on the Friday before the Kentucky Derby. The race currently covers 1⅛ miles (1811 m) at Churchill Downs; the winner gets a $500,000 dollar purse and a garland of lilies. This year's winner Rachel Alexandra who won by 20 1/4 lengths. The jockey was Calvin Borel.
One other thing about the Oaks this year, the theme was pink as the track turned out to support breast cancer awareness. I did my best to comply! I brought my hat and Mary Therese's "fascinator" from London [doesn't look just facinating-?].
There was a crowd of us that got together. We drove down with MT and Dinger and their friend, Pierre [in from Boston]. And we stopped on the way to renew my driver's license [yep, I'm not kidding!]. While looking for a place to park, we came across Erica and Matt, and then on the fron
t lawn of the yard we parked I saw Janice. Inside the park, Laura was in from Indy and she brought along Jackie. Jyl and Damon also had tickets and joined us all down in section 128 ... where we didn't see a single race, but we had fun. The sun came out and anything that was outside the perimeter of my hat, got burned!
t lawn of the yard we parked I saw Janice. Inside the park, Laura was in from Indy and she brought along Jackie. Jyl and Damon also had tickets and joined us all down in section 128 ... where we didn't see a single race, but we had fun. The sun came out and anything that was outside the perimeter of my hat, got burned!After the track, I joined Jyl & Damon, Laura, Jackie & her husband [whose name escaptes me], Rhonda, and Martha [in from Cincy] for dinner at Bristol's. Green chili won tons! My favourite!
On Saturday, we had tickets for the Derby, but of course, Mother Nature was not going to be so cooperative. It rained heavily the night before and morning of the race, so
the track was wet and sloppy. Interestingly, many of the horses running that day had never run on dirt having come from California where the tracks are made out of a polymer.The favourite up until race day was I Want Revenge ... who scratched on Saturday morning due 
to some swelling in his leg.
to some swelling in his leg. Mine That Bird was the winner of 135th Kentucky Derby running ... ridden by jockey, Calvin Borel ... the same jockey that won the Oaks! This 2009 win is the second time in three years that Calvin Borel has ridden the winner of the Kentucky Derby; he rode Street Sense to a win in 2007. In fact, Mine That Bird, a 3-year-old gelding, went from worst to first, literally. Calvin Borel held him back, biding his time in last place until room opened along the rail, then passed passing horse after horse down the stretch. Mine That Bird won leading by 6 3/4 lengths, and became the second biggest longshot in Derby history, only Donerail in 1913 won at longer odds.
