JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

I lost $100 on the Derby, but I don’t care. It was the best and most exciting Derby in a decade or more.

Our 34-year-old daughter Brooks, a bid Derby fan, summed it up in a text she sent me and Patty minutes after the race: “Crazy!! Great Derby. So great to have something unexpected happen!!!”

Yes, this Derby — with 80-1 longshot Rich Strike, barreling through on the rail to prevail in the last few strides — was worth every one of those exclamation points.

Watching the race on TV, I thought the horse I had bet on, Zandon, one of the betting favorites, was going to win. He was engaged in a stretch battle with another betting favorite, Epicenter, and I was focused on those two. It was a bit discombobulating, then, to see Rich Strike, wearing saddle cloth No. 21, whoosh by both of them on the inside, where it’s usually difficult to gain ground.

Rich Strike, who had been purchased earlier in his racing career for a measly $30,000, paid $163.20 on a $2 bet.

It was the second biggest winning payoff in Derby history, behind only Donerail who paid $184.90 in 1913.

Joe Drape, a Kansas City native who has been turf writer for The New York Times for many years, had a compelling description of Rich Strike’s trip around the track.

(Jockey Sonny) Leon guided Rich Strike almost 90 degrees out of the gate, going from the 20th path to the inside. Then, they rode the rail like a couple of hobos.

Leon and his colt were unhurried as they followed 17 other horses chasing a wicked early pace into the far turn.

“Nobody knows my horse like I know my horse.” Leon said.

Leon started guiding his horse through the pack, zigzagging like someone late for work on a busy Manhattan sidewalk. Ahead of them, Epicenter and Zandon looked each other in the eye for what was going to be duel to the wire in the middle of the track.

“I had to wait until the stretch and that’s what I did,” Leon said, “and then the rail opened up.”

In the final strides, Drape wrote, “Leon and Rich Strike flashed past like a bottle rocket.”

**

Patty and I watched at a Derby party on the rooftop of the Crossroads Hotel. We were with good friends, Leigh and Lorraine Elmore, with whom we go way back. In fact, the night I brazenly first approached Patty in the back room of the New Stanley Bar in Westport, she was sitting with Lorraine. Not just sitting, but smoking and drinking. (She gave up the smoking several years later.)

Now, here are several photos I took atop the Crossroads Hotel.