JUST A HIPPIE GYPSY

GHOSTS OF DERBY PAST

During my first attempt at college I was fortunate enough to attend the most famous Kentucky Derby in modern history. In 1973 I saw the unbeatable and undoubltly the greatest race horse of the last half of the 20th century Secretariart win the 99th Derby.

It is my favorite Derby not only because of Secreteriate, but because my best friend in the whord world went went me. Afterwards she bordered a plane and I did not see her again for 25 years! Every Derby since we wrote each other. Today it is email on the first Saturday of May. She has a Mint julep and remembers the school year she spent at Murray State University that culminated with a Derby and a flight out of Bluegrass field for a redevous with her destiny.

Me, I was left behind to attend many more Derby's. Not one of them could replace how special that 99th running ended up being.

Fast forward to Mothers Day 2003. My sister Omega and I were cleaning up the family room after a recent flood. We were removing the carpet, reaarraging the furniture, cleaning and disposing of the spoils of spring. We decided to move the twin bookcases, which are placed side by side so close they look like one bookcase, so we could clean under them.

We removed the books and then moved the first one.

"Look" my sister said as she peeled a tote ticket that had somehow fallen inbetween the two cases and had been hidden from sight.

"My goodness...1973!!!"

We raced upstairs to show Mom what we had found. Not to show her how awful her housekeeping skills are that we can find a lost article fromover 30 years ago, but because Omega and my Mom are both in the Horse Industry and a find like this, an actual tote ticket from the 99th running of the Derby was an interesting find!

The ticket was a WIN ticket for #1.

We got out one of Moms reference books and saw that the #1 horse was Angle Light.

I arrived home and immediately began looking for my old Derby program from that race.

Guess What? Go ahead, guess what?

Angle Light was coupled that day. To secretaries, who ran as 1-A.

We found a winning ticket for the 99th Kentucky Derby! 30 years later!