This Friday marks the 75th opening of the spring meet at Keeneland. For me it has always been one of the most anticipated days of the year. Basketball season is over, football is a distant memory, and baseball is one of those long affairs that allows us all to join at anytime. Keeneland is the renewal, the rebirth of all that holds promise in our lives. The trees are flowering, the tulips are blooming, that smell of grass, freshly cut makes Keeneland and Kentucky one of those fairytale lands that no poet can do justice to.
Each spring for 75 years the best horse, the best trainers, and the best jockeys have come to Keeneland with the hopes of securing that special place in the Sport of Kings, a Derby horse that will take them a little way up the road to Chuchill Downs on the first Saturday in May. For them horse racing immortality is just a clean trip and a very fast thoroughbred. Oh, but how rare and elusive those kind are. Luck may be their best friend along this treacherous road.
For the rest of us we go to Keeneland to see the beautiful horses and people, that posture on the lawns sporting parasols and ornamental hats. Somehow it makes us all feel dressed up. Yes there is something special about Keeneland, something special about the horses and the people, something special about the time of year, and something special about the feel of formality that no other racetrack in this country exudes.
Keeneland only lasts for a few days during April and it's not that far, it's just over the hill, right in our own backyards.
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