Kentucky Derby Memories Are on Display in Museum
The Kentucky Derby Museum has a gift horse you can look in the mouth.
The museum, on the grounds of Churchill Downs, also has racing silks, trophies, old photos, programs, paintings, blacksmith equipment, saddles and bridles, julep glasses, posters, videotapes and hundreds of other items associated with the Derby.
Most of those are gifts donated to the museum after it made several public pleas for Derby memorabilia.
“We don’t just get gifts from owners and trainers,” said Jan Duke, the museum’s curator of collections. “We get them from people who may have gone to just one Derby. All the people who come to the Derby make up the Derby. It’s all part of the memories, and the Derby is memories.”
The mud-stained blue and white silks Mac Garner wore in riding Cavalcade to victory in the 1934 Derby are in the museum. So are 235 trophies won by Spendthrift Farm horses while Leslie Combs II was owner, including the trophy won by Majestic Prince in 1969.
Advertising posters and signs linking beer to the race are in the collection as well, donated by people who acquired the souvenirs.
One man who worked at the 1936 Derby as an usher offered a program autographed by Babe Ruth in time for last year’s exhibit of memorabilia from the 1936 Derby. This year’s showing contains donated photos showing Churchill Downs under water from the 1937 flood.
A Los Angeles woman, Jane Dempsey, donated the Derby programs accumulated during yearly junkets to the track, thereby completing the museum’s collection of all 112 Derby programs.
Jim Bolus, a Louisville sportswriter, donated his complete collection of Derby notes, articles and taped interviews. It will form the core of a Derby research library.
A rose from the winner’s blanket for Gato Del Sol (1982), dipped in silver, is part of the museum’s collection of the unusual.
“I don’t know how that was done,” Duke said. “But we’ve gotten a lot of unusual things.”
The memorabilia includes ashtrays with names of winners etched inside, homemade records and songs written about the Derby by aspiring musicians, a few uncashed winning tickets and lots of uncashed losing tickets.
“The best gifts are the ones which come from the people who say, ‘My grandfather has this,’ and give it to us so more people can see it,” Duke said. “That means a lot to us.”
Donations continue to come in, like the recent gift by the widow of Churchill Downs blacksmith Pat Hillock. She donated his equipment, which had been used to shoe Derby entrants for years.
A special section of the museum is reserved for Carry Back, the 1961 winner. His trophies and photos of his races, all donated by owners Mr. and Mrs. Jack Price, line the walls of an alcove on the museum’s second floor. The thoroughbred, who died in 1983, is buried in the courtyard of the museum.
In among the faded silks, the cracked leather harnesses and tarnished trophies are high-tech souvenirs.
“People associate a museum with dusty books and artifacts,” Duke said. “But we’re getting videos of the race.”
Outside the three-level museum is its most popular exhibit, Groton Cup, a spoiled 14-year-old gelding who prances for the crowd, begs to be petted and allows his lip tattoo to be displayed.
A gift to the museum from Churchill Downs, Groton Cup can be seen happily running around his small paddock after the starting bell rings on the track. Unlike the other exhibits in the museum, this is as close as he’s ever been to the Derby--the grandson of Triple Crown winner Citation, his racing career was curtailed by an injury in his first race.
The museum was founded in 1962 by Churchill Downs. It was closed in 1983 and reopened two years later in a new facility under the direction of a non-profit corporation.
