DERBY FUN

Rose garlands to trophies: Inside the storage vault at the Kentucky Derby Museum

Courier Journal

A few steps beyond the horse gravestones and a Conestoga wagon stamped with “God Bless John Wayne” and “Derby 95 or Bust” stood a dated, yellowing slot machine.

If I’d had a quarter, an outlet and some good luck, I could have bet on Kentucky Derby legends War Admiral, Gallant Fox and Omaha.

But games would have to wait.

I was in the archives of the Kentucky Derby Museum at 704 Central Ave standing among some of the rarest and oddest pieces of the storied race’s history. It’s just an elevator ride and a few steps into the two unmarked rooms that sit below the museum's actual attractions and exhibits.

The Kentucky Derby Museum sits adjacent to the iconic racing track, but operates as a separate non-profit organization and generates its own revenue.

Upstairs there’s a whole afternoon’s worth of exploring that’s open to the public. For a small fee, you can stand in Churchill Downs’ first electric gate, browse through the International Hall of Horseshoes or take a simulated ride on a racehorse.

But that upstairs only holds about 5 percent of everything the museum has to offer. You could probably spend years digging through the full collection and still not see all there is to see.

Just how much is in the basement is hard to say. The museum doesn’t broadcast the actual size of its collection or its worth, and for security purposes, the archiving staff members prefer generalizations.

They’ll tell you that the museum started with “hundreds and hundreds” of items with an initial donation from Churchill Downs in the mid-80s and it's grown to “thousands and thousands” today.

There’s value to the gold and sterling silver trophies tucked into the archival shelves just as there is value to that bizarre, hand-painted Conestoga wagon that spent several years in the Kentucky Derby infield.

“Priceless” is another generalization you'll hear, and really it all is.

The collection tells the whole Kentucky Derby story from the hundreds and hundreds of horses, jockeys, trainers and owners to the millions and millions of fans who’ve filed into Churchill Downs over 145 years.

And somehow, it all fits in those two basement rooms.

To my right stood the paper half of the collection. They've dedicated one room to things like printed materials that span from the mid-19th century to the present day. You’ll find hundreds of stories written by famed horse racing journalist Jim Bolus that go back to the 1875 Kentucky Derby and a wide collection of oral histories, photographs, handwritten letters and magazines.

It’s the place you go if you want to look up the odds on Affirmed, the Triple Crown winner in 1978, or the weather conditions when Secretariat crossed the finish line a few years before. Those details are hidden in the columns and news stories of those days. That room is the information-heavy, research-friendly part of the archive.

It sister, just a few steps away to my left, is where the objects and the oddities live.

Even if I had a quarter, I don’t think I could have focused on that slot machine. Every time I turned, I caught I different part of the Kentucky Derby story.

Some parts, like the gravestone for the 1961 Kentucky Derby winner Carry Back, don't need a ton of explanation.

Other pieces need a little more background. This isn't like upstairs, where items are marked with signage and fact panels. The collections items all have a story, but they're tucked away in the museum's records. Each piece is carefully marked with a series of numbers that correspond with the museum’s notes on it.

So having the museum's collections manager, Jessica Whitehead, show me around on this little adventure was essential.

She knew that Conestoga wagon was a gift from a Kentucky Derby fan named Brad Thompson in 2008 and that it had been carted into the infield as a party wagon back when things could be carted into the infield. Today, purses can’t be larger than 12 inches in any dimension and food must be packed in clear plastic containers — but the year that Thompson’s crew stamped that wagon with “Y2K” it rolled right into Churchill Downs with all the fixings for a good time.

Wearing blue plastic gloves, Whitehead turned her attention and fingertips to the saddle that Mike Manganello rode on when Dust Commander took the Kentucky Derby cup in 1970. The museum has a large collection of tack, saddles, saddle blankets and horseshoes related to Kentucky Derby winners, she told me, but Manganello had left an interesting sign of the times on this one.

On the tail end, he’d labeled it with his name using a piece of tan tape and one of those old-school, punch-style labeling guns.

There’s no shortage of character like that in the museum’s collection.

The floor looks like a cross between a garage, a living room, and an office. Much of it is architectural salvage from one of Churchill Downs’ numerous renovations. Think brass fixtures, wooden armchairs with faded floral upholstered seats, an old yellow taxi phone and a tote machine that probably hasn’t printed tickets in decades.

On one end there’s an old white mantle that likely stood in one of Churchill Downs' executive offices and at another, there’s a metal street sign that says “Home of 1992 Kentucky Derby Winner Lil E. Tee” that probably hung outside of the horse’s barn.

There are seemingly enough mint julep cups and Kentucky Derby glasses tucked in the archival shelves to throw a cocktail party for everyone upstairs walking the museum.

A variety of horse racing themed items can be found on the shelves of the Kentucky Derby Museum archives. 3/26/19

You could say the same about enough artwork to outfit every stall on the backside.

Quite a bit more care is taken with all of it, though.

The bulk of the art hangs on a motorized rack and away from harmful lights. The paintings and drawings face inward toward each other without touching. Each movement of the gate is like flipping through a coffee table book that spans from the floor to the ceiling, but they’re all original and right in front of you.

When something is pulled from its spot in the collection, it's placed on acid-free cloths or tissue paper. If it's boxed away, it's done so in acid-free boxes. That kind of care is taken whether they're moving the oldest known Derby gold cup or a handmade wooden folk art purse featuring clippings from 100th Kentucky Derby in 1974.

As a rule, everything in these two rooms is handled with gloves, but older pieces, specifically, are never touched with bare hands. The smallest trace oil or particles on your fingertips won't typically do much damage immediately, Whitehead told me, but a trace of grease on your finger from lunch today could be an unnatural blemish on a painting or saddle years from now.

Some things are almost too delicate to even be handled. Just above my head, I could see an old rose garland or two peeking out from the top shelf.

In just a couple hours in that basement, I got the strangest sampler of the Kentucky Derby's 145-year history.

The museum staff does a great job of preserving the race's history and telling its story upstairs, but when its pieces are scattered in front of you with no obvious pattern, there's a different message to take away from the collection.

This was Louisville's race when those fading floral chairs were in style and when people called for taxis on that yellow phone. The Kentucky Derby was here when that tote machine was printing tickets and when fans were still recording the most exciting two minutes in sports on VHS.

Horse racing enthusiasts have been celebrating this day since 1875, whether that meant carting a wagon into the infield or modge-podging program pieces to a folk art purse.

Kentucky Derby culture has evolved over the years as styles, technologies and times have changed, but the race itself has been a constant.

And these two rooms are the keepers of it.

Reach Maggie Menderski at 502-582-7137 or mmenderski@courier-journal.com. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @MaggieMenderski. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/maggiem.