Eating Dirt on Kentucky Derby Day
Taking in racing’s subtleties at Aqueduct Racetrack on the road to the Triple Crown.
Todd Pletcher's Vino Rosso (right) passes Enticed during the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct. The two will meet again in the Kentucky Derby.
Photographer: Victor J. Blue/BloombergWatch a horse race up close, like right-smack-next-to-the-rail kind of close, and you’ll see it: a thick, low-hanging cloud that follows the pack from the starting gate to the finish line.
That cloud is dirt. And it forms as the horses’ hooves tear through the track surface and kick up clumps of sand, clay and silt. Big and small, loose and tightly packed, these clods hurtle relentlessly from all angles at the shoulders, necks and faces of the horses—and jockeys—trailing the leaders.