05.01.14
Rolex to Derby, what a week+! We are, The Horse Capitol of the World.
I am not sure there is a bigger week in Kentucky that defines us as the Horse Capitol of the World like the 10 days from the start of Rolex through Saturday’s Kentucky Derby this year. There are a number of interesting factoids in regards to these two events. The Rolex Three-Day Event takes 4 days from Start to Finish, the Kentucky Derby is decided in 2 minutes plus or minus a few seconds. Both events are consider a leg of the Triple Crown in their respective sports. A number of successful Rolex horses are Thoroughbreds that started out as race horses and transitioned to Eventing. Generally Jockeys are short and only weighing about 100 pounds, Eventers tend to run the gambit on body size, William Fox-Pitt who won this year’s Rolex is something like 6′ 5″. The Rolex is in Lexington, The Derby in Louisville, two cities defined by Horses and Basketball both with a taste for Bourbon. Both events draw big crowds with significant economic impact both locally and on a State basis. The Derby does beat the Rolex in the area of TV coverage, 4 days of Rolex are turned into 1 hour of TV a week after the fact, where as the 2 minutes of the Derby equals many hours of live coverage across several channels. The obvious difference is that you can’t bet on the Rolex, well technically I guess you could, but who would want to, and if you do, you probably need to seek help. Another thing they have in common is that men and women compete equally and women are certainly a force to be reckoned with in the horse world, maybe more so there then anywhere else in business. I am sure that last sentence will draw some comments and I don’t have any scientific studies to back that up but feel pretty good about the validity of that statement. All of this is to make the point that we are The Horse Capitol of the World and that is a pretty cool thing, especially this time of the year.
Kentucky Colonel
Thomas P. Demond
KyWEGO
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