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No. 1: Ain't it obvious?
No. 2: Pegasus Pins
For a kid growing up in Louisville, Derby is less about the mint juleps and Infield mud wrestling (you'll learn to appreciate those later) and more about the quest for that Willy Wonka's Golden Ticket of Derbytime - a gold Pegasus Pin.
Some of my sharpest Derby memories are of my preteen self standing in line at the Kroger checkout with my dad, ogling Pegasus Pins. Every spring. Kroger cleared out space between the tabloids and the Tic Tacs for racks of the tiny plastic treasures. In the '90s, they cost $2 each, sold in paper envelopes with two retail coupons inside.
Every grocery trip, I begged Dad to buy me another one. Among the 300,000 or so Pegasus Pins sold annually, approximately one in 30 was a golden instant-win pin. And I was determined to tear through as many as it took to strike gold. Plus, pins came in five different colors, so I could at least complete my collection along the way. A gal needs a Pegasus Pin for every outfit.
Dad didn't seem to mind. A Pegasus Pin earned us admission to the Chow Wagon, the BalloonFest, the Bed Races and other Derby Festival events. A gold pin could win us theater tickets, Derby Pie or restaurant certificates, and we'd be eligible for more than a dozen drawings. Final grand prize in those days: a new Cadillac.
I never did find a golden pin. Derby 138 marks the 40th edition of Pegasus Pins (they are now $4 in advance, $5 at events), and you can bet I'll be paying a few visits to Kroger. Watch out for that any lady in front of you at the checkout line. This just might be my year.
No. 3: There's a Cinderella story waiting to happen.
WHEN PEOPLE TALK about Derby upsets, those surprise outcomes usually fall into two categories: long-odds winners besting a field with no preordained superstars and lightly regarded spoilers who ruin the storyline for heavy favorites already subject to media deification. The former would of course include the $184.90-paying Donerail in 1913, as well as recent 50-1 shots Giacomo and Mine That Bird; two top examples of the latter would be Dark...