I was absolutely giddy when I saw the headline in our local Gannett Profit Center, also known as The Courier-Journal:

“Churchill Downs Inc. to eliminate jobs.”

I thought, “Hot dog!” Or, more to the point, “Hot sausage!” I was certain the story would tell me the track’s board of directors had finally put Bob Evans through the meat grinder. The only question was, patties or links?

Well, silly me. I should have known better. I should have known that in modern corporate America, it’s never the sausage-makers – ah, decision-makers – who take the fall when business goes bad and the stockholders get restless. It’s the little guys who are guilty of nothing except showing up for work every day and doing their best.

The sad news was delivered by a corporate suit named Kevin Flanery, who will never be confused with Brownie Leach, Edgar Allen, Tony Terry and some of Churchill’s distinguished past spokesman.

He said, and I quote, “It’s unfortunate. It’s always difficult when you have to say goodbye to co-workers.”

Obviously, Mr. Flanery knows that he will not be among those getting the pink slips. Unfortunate? Difficult? How about tragic? Especially when Mr. Flanery freely admits, in a moment of candor, that the dismissals are not a reflection of performance, which is an interesting thing to say considering that Churchill didn’t specify what jobs will be eliminated or consolidated.

Speaking eloquent corporatespeak, Mr. Flanery continued:

“This is part of just our ongoing review of our ability to be competitive in the market, in the horse-industry business, and how we can best deliver our product to the horse-racing fan and continue to be a viable company.”

What an unmitigated load of crap.

Everybody knows the problem at Churchill is that the head sausage-maker and his little butchers don’t care about people and horses. They worship at the altar of the almighty dollar. Period.

Evans and his right-hand man, Steve Sexton, who, by the way, looks very good in a suit, were brought in by Richard Duchossois – who quietly took over Churchill in a bloodless coup – to finish the job started by Tom Meeker; the job of raping the track of its history and tradition while turning it into cold and heartless slaughterhouse.

If there’s too much fat in the sausage Bob Evans is making at Churchill, the way to make it leaner is to start at the top. Send Evans and Sexton packing. Bring in somebody like, oh, Ron Geary of Ellis Park. Or Mark Wilson, formerly of TVG. Or Gregg Dedrick, the president of KFC.

Wait a minute. Scratch that last one. Our local Gannett Profit Center also tells us that KFC sales have fallen so sharply that David Novak, CEO of parent Yum! Brands, is mad as hell about it. “We have a lot of work to do at KFC,” Novak said, ominously.

But no more than the sausage-makers have to do at Churchill Downs. The track needs to make peace with the horsemen instead of trying to screw them out of their rightful share of individual account wagering. It needs to make peace with the General Assembly if it is to ever have a chance to get a casino gaming license.

And it needs to make peace with the community for blowing off the 2009 Breeders Cup for no earthly reason except spite. Churchill wanted the Breeders Cup to change its rules in order to – what else? – allow Churchill to squeeze more profit out of racing’s grand extravaganza.

The Breeders Cup, rightly, refused to make an exception for Churchill, so the head sausage maker took his pigskin and went home. Never mind that this unilateral decision deprived the city’s restaurants, hotels, and other businesses out of windfall profits at a time when the war in Iraq and soaring gasoline prices are devastating the nation’s economy.

Here’s my question: Who reviews Evans and Sexton? What sort of grades are they given for their betrayal of a public trust, which is what Churchill is to many of us? Are their salaries being slashed? Their bonuses withdrawn? Their jobs consolidated? If not, why not?

One way we’ll know that Churchill is getting back on track is when corporate crap-slingers such as Mr. Flanery stop using the word “product” when referring to horse racing and the Kentucky Derby. This is not sausage-and-egg biscuits we’re talking about. It is the lives of humans and horses. It’s something that’s deeply embedded in our culture and the way we see ourselves as a community.

But I waste my breath. The suits at the top will never understand. They’ll never get it. They have their noses buried too deeply in spreadsheets and profit-and-loss statements. And they make a bad situation worse by saying insincere things like, “It’s always difficult when you have to say goodbye to co-workers.”

Easy for Mr. Flanery to say. He still has a job. For now. But he might be wise to heed the words of John Donne, that old racetracker from merry old England:

“…any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”