Opening night at Churchill

Call it $hur$hill Downs.
 
And not because I made a killing financially on Saturday night. After providing food and beverage for Sonja and I, we got home with $15 less dollars than I went out there with.

It could have been worse.

$hur$hill Downs is all about the pay this season. It has been for a while, but last night cinched it when they decided to make the room I've hung out in for years...Silks...an admission section. $25 per head to sit where I've hung out for free since the Clinton administration. Gone are the barstools...present are the gestapo troops to make sure no one enters the forbidden zone unless they folk over a few greenbacks.

It is bull____.

I didn't pay it. We hung out in the newly named Win, Show and Place section...formerly the open area in front of the simulcasting screens on the second floor of the clubhouse.

That was free. Give them a week or so and they'll figure out how to make that area a "pay for seating"  section.

They had a great crowd last night. The music was popping, the new projection screen awesome and the horse-racing...well, still the same old sub-standard claimers and worn out allowance runners we've come to expect under the Twin Spires.

Seriously....you can't fill the fields on Opening night? Six or seven horses a race? Incredible.

Kudos to Churchill for hiring track announcer Larry Collmus and sending the babbling Brit Mark Johnson back across the Atlantic. Larry calls a great rack. You can understand him and you always know where the horse(s) you are rooting for are at during his precise and engaging call of a race.

The Derby Trial was exciting. Although the horse I really liked in here (Chitu) scratched...one of two that bailed on the feature...I thought that Bob Baffert's Bayern should get the money pretty easily.

He did not. A tight finish....a nose separating Bayern, Embellishing Bob and Myosis Dan at the wire. Bayern finishing first but getting disqualified for bumping in the stretch.

More bull____.  Embellishing Bob and Brian Hernandez, Jr. started the pinball-machine bouncing in the stretch...yet got rewarded with the disqualification of Bayern to second. Rosie Napervinik, on board Bayern, couldn't believe it either. I like Brian Hernandez, Jr. as a jockey...but he didn't deserve the win in the Derby Trial.

Chitu will try the Derby. He's worth watching.

That loss blew up my Pick 4 and it was time to go. The trek to the car...passing twenty-something party goers just arriving at the track...on a perfect, balmy Saturday night was fun. I hope they come back in mid-June when it's 90 degrees and the weekday attendance wanes.

The spectacle of events like Downs After Dark is good for bringing younger participants to the track. They don't bet a lot...probably good...because Churchill is there to gouge every loose $5, $10 and $20 they can out of them.

I feel for the bartenders and servers in Silks. Their tip money will be drastically reduced. I've known most of them for years. They weren't happy campers Saturday night. The gestapo guarding the area needs to lighten up. It's entertainment, not quarantine...

Dollars After Dark. Get used to the money grab the rest of the week at The World's Most Legendary Racetrack.

paulie