On the morning of Sunday, August 23, 1959, my 16-year-old heart was racing as I grabbed The Lexington Herald-Leader off the front steps at 329 Mentelle Park in Lexington and pulled out the sports section. I hurriedly thumbed through the pages until I found the story headlined, “53 Henry Clay Grid Candidates Prep for Opener.”
It […]
Entries from June 2011
Golden Exacta: 50 Years of Newspapers and Horses
July 29th, 2009 · 2 Comments
Tags: Horse Racing · Journalism · Keeneland · Kentucky Derby · Sports · University of Kentucky
50 Years Later, Papers Aren’t the Same
July 25th, 2009 · 7 Comments
As always, I thoroughly enjoyed being the emcee for the Governor’s Cup press conference and luncheon on Thursday at the Cardinal Club. Under the direction of Randy Whitt, the event has developed into a first-class forum for celebrating the Kentucky-Louisville football rivalry, reconnecting with old friends and legends, and kicking off the upcoming season.
In years […]
Tags: Football · Journalism · Sports · University of Kentucky · University of Louisville
Win One for the Geezers, Tom
July 19th, 2009 · No Comments
Tom Watson always has loved links golf so much that in a prior life he probably played with Old Tom Morris or Young Tom Morris or Sir Harry McDivot or one of those other Scotsman who inflicted upon the world their type of whiskey and the greatest individual game ever.
So besides all the emotional stuff […]
The Musical Route to 66
July 11th, 2009 · 4 Comments
A guy turns 66 and he thinks about a lot of stuff. Music is a big part of it. He ponders the career of Michael Jackson, dead at 50, and he has trouble reconciling the Bob Dylan he always has known and loved with the raspy caricature he saw in concert Wednesday night at Slugger […]
Tags: Baseball · Entertainment · Music · Sports
Butler’s Rich Life More Than Books
July 10th, 2009 · 4 Comments
My favorite memory of Bill Butler happened the Sunday after the 2003 Kentucky Derby. His company, Butler Books, had published “My Favorite Derby Stories,” a collection of pieces I had done over the years, and we went to the Kentucky Colonels Barbecue, then held in Bardstown, to see if we could sell some books.
About 100 […]
Tags: Miscellaneous
Racing Dilemma Continues at Forum
July 8th, 2009 · 5 Comments
At the beginning of his remarks at yesterday’s Louisville Forum luncheon about the plight of Kentucky’s horse racing industry, Bob Evans, the president and CEO of Churchill Downs, Inc., told the group that he had expanded the acreage of his Central Kentucky breeding farm. “I don’t know why I keep investing in this industry,” Evans […]
Tags: Churchill Downs · Gambling
Sky May Be Falling on Racing
July 6th, 2009 · 14 Comments
Churchill Downs’ wildly successful experiment with night racing has provided a huge ray of a hope to an industry that desperately needs every shred of good news it can get. The show now moves to Ellis Park in Henderson, where owner Ron Geary is set to go out of business after the upcoming meet due […]
Tags: Churchill Downs · Gambling · Horse Racing · Keeneland · Kentucky Derby · Politics · Sports
Apologies to the Good Guys in Slots Fight
July 4th, 2009 · 3 Comments
Happy Independence Day, everyone. I’m happy to report that I’m rejuvenated after the disappointing demise of the slots bill in the state senate, and looking forward to the day when all Kentuckians will be free of the Bully of Burkesville’s brand of political tyranny.
Upon further review, I probably was too harsh in my evaluation of […]
Tags: Churchill Downs · Gambling · Horse Racing · Politics · Sports

