Today is the day thousands of people step out of their usual selves and slip into something Derby.

        Hats and long dresses for the women. Kelly green jackets, yellow hankies and white shoes for the men. Or maybe head-to-toe seersucker, like Col. Sanders on a casual Friday.

        Beginning this morning, the phenomenon known as the Kentucky Derby will transform Louisville's Churchill Downs from mere racetrack to time-travel machine.

        In the good seats, aristocrats and assorted pretenders will fan themselves, handicap horses and purchase mint juleps at 5:30, to prepare for the singing of My Old Kentucky Home.

Brandi Gunter of Mount Adams sports a butterfly hat at Friday's Kentucky Oaks. Ms. Gunter's friend Jennifer Dempsey of Louisville made the hat. (Gary Landers photo) | ZOOM |

        This moment — practically religion to Derby-goers — recalls a time when genteel Southerners sipped iced tea under magnolia trees in mid-afternoon. Never mind that no one remembers all the verses of Kentucky's song. They smile, mumble and steal glances at the words in the program.

        Then there's the Derby's other side: The roiling mass of humanity known as the infield. Thousands loll on blankets, smuggle booze past security and sometimes get stuck in the portable toilets.

        Infielders recall a different era altogether. Think Woodstock.
       

An intoxicated mixture
        Every time I attend the Derby, I want to rub my eyes. It's extraordinary theater: a combination of real and phony, famous and unknown, rich and working-class, drunk and drunker.

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        That guy in the butter-cream suit, I ask myself, didn't he guest star on the Love Boat once? And that woman in the infield. ... Is it my imagination, or did she just take off her pants?

        Jim Beggan was surprised, too. He's from the Northeast, now at the University of Louisville, and his first Derby last year was a revelation. The infield. The two weeks of pre-Derby hoopla. The sacrifices people made for fashion.

        “Part of me was saying, "How can you possibly be enjoying yourself? It's so hot and you're so overdressed,'” Dr. Beggan says. “But I think it's because they're acting out a role.”

        He's a social psychologist, so he has a few ideas. The infielders seem happy, for instance. Besides booze, this might be related to something called relative deprivation theory.
       

Something gives you chills
        People are most likely to revolt when conditions are improving, not when they're at their worst. Rebellion comes with glimpses of a better life, and at the Derby, infielders can't see a thing.

        Subconsciously, they're thinking, “I'm not mad that these other people have better seats, because they're not a relevant comparison ...” Dr. Beggan says.

        Of course, we know what they're consciously thinking: “Dude, cool tattoo.”

        Michele Kline of Edgewood has attended every Derby since 1967. She sat in the infield once, as a college student, and vowed never to repeat.

        “You couldn't see the races,” she said.

        Today she'll join relatives for an afternoon of tradition. In her parents' box seats, she'll eat fried chicken (a rare occurrence) and wear a hat (rarer still.)

        “There's something that just gives you chills when you see the horses coming onto the track,” Ms. Kline says. “All of a sudden, my mind jumps to the bluegrass with all the horses running in the fields.”

        That's the mark of a true Kentuckian — with or without mint julep in hand.

       Karen Samples can be reached at 859-578-5584 or ksamples@enquirer.com.

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