Missing the Derby

For the first time since 1945 there was no Kentucky Derby on the first Saturday in May. There were no thoroughbreds thundering down the back stretch at Churchill Downs. There were, I hear, some fans — many wearing fancy hats — who couldn't stay away. They appeared, crowned and masked, to traipse around the track and take photos of vacant betting windows and empty paddocks.

We've lost many of our traditional markers this spring. No tournament basketball in March, no first day of baseball in April. And now ... no Derby in May — to be followed by no Preakness or Belmont, either, at least for the time being.

Of all the pain, sadness and disruption brought on by this pandemic this is hardly the greatest. But for this transplanted Kentuckian, who has never missed a Derby either live (twice) or televised (every other time), it was a loss indeed.