While more than 150,000 roaring fans will descend on Churchill Downs for Saturday’s Kentucky Derby, just beyond the grandstands, a quieter, more steadfast rhythm unfolds. On the backside of the track, hundreds of grooms, hot walkers, and other workers rise before dawn to attend to the never-ending business of caring for elite equine athletes. “The work back there is seven days a week,” says Hall-of-Fame jockey and Louisville resident Pat Day, who scored an improbable come-from-behind Derby victory in 1992.
Visitors can glimpse this bustling, behind-the-scenes activity on daily tours offered through the nonprofit Kentucky Derby Museum, which this year is celebrating its fortieth anniversary. Interspersed among the dozens of long, green-roofed barns are apartment-style dormitories where many workers live while onsite, and, across from those dorms, a small cinder-block chapel. Day was instrumental in getting that chapel built in 2006, and prior to that in establishing the Kentucky chapter of the Race Track Chaplaincy of America. “Almost immediately it was standing room only,” he says of the chapter’s early days. “[Chaplain Ken Boehm] had his pulpit in the rec center and his backdrop was a row of wagering windows.” Today the nondenominational Christ Chapel at Churchill Downs serves as a hub of life on the backside, with a full-time chaplain as well as women’s and children’s ministry directors who attend to both the spiritual and physical needs of its transitory community.
The national Race Track Chaplaincy was founded in 1972 by H.W. “Salty” Roberts, a backside worker who—mirroring Day’s own journey—devoted himself to helping others after battling alcohol dependency and other personal struggles. “Sometimes these workers would run from the barns to [a nearby] church—smelling of horses or maybe with a bit of dung on their boots—and they weren’t always warmly received,” Day says of the need. “So, [Salty] said, ‘If they can’t get off the track and go to the church of their choice, let’s bring church to them.’”
As the Derby marks its 151st year, we spoke with Day about his thirty-two-year racing career—during which he notched 8,803 victories—his calling to the Kentucky Race Track Chaplaincy, and what it feels like to cross the Derby finish line ahead of the field.
How did you become involved in horse racing and, later, the chaplaincy?
I was born and raised in a small ranching community in Colorado. I wanted to be a professional bull rider and pursued that with limited success after high school. I’m 4’11” and weighed about one hundred pounds at that time, but it never crossed my mind to be a jockey. I knew nothing about the horse-race industry. But, in the course of my travels, I met people who asked if I’d ever thought about being a jockey. To make a long story short, on July 29, 1973, I won my first race.
I was an absolute natural [in the saddle], and success came fast. In 1982, I was the leading rider in North America. I thought winning the national riding title would fill this void I felt in my heart, but regardless of how many races I won, I found myself still wanting something more. A lifestyle of drugs and alcohol and sordid living was readily available, and I became involved in that, which caused some problems.
I encountered Jesus Christ in a Miami hotel room on January 27, 1984 and invited Him into my life. I thought I was being called into the ministry, but don’t you know my first day back at the racetrack, at Oaklawn in Hot Springs [Arkansas], I met the chaplain. I believe it was providential. Then, as now, the racetrack chaplaincy was the only organization endeavoring to bring the gospel to the racing industry, so I threw in with them and have been involved ever since.
You’ve described it as a “ministry of presence.” What does that mean?
Our chaplains are ordained ministers—they can marry, bury, and baptize, and they hold weekly church services and Bible studies. They also organize health fairs, and we have a food pantry and a clothes closet.
The chaplains walk through the barn areas during training hours. When the barn area is plumb full of horses and in the busy-ness of the morning, there’s probably 1,200 people working and moving back there. They don’t want to interrupt anybody—the work is very important—but they’ll stop and say “Good morning” or have a quick chat. That’s their congregation. Sometimes a trainer might call the chaplain off to the side and say, “Hey, Joe over there, his mother is very sick,” or whatever the issue may be, and the chaplain can then minister to that individual and offer counseling.
And all that activity only increases around Derby season.
It gets hectic, but it’s an exciting time! One of the things that makes the Kentucky Derby so special is that the whole area gets up for it. Louisville is known as the Derby City.
You, of course, won the 1992 Derby aboard longshot Lil E. Tee. Could you describe what that moment is like for a jockey?
I’ve spent a lot of time just savoring that sweet victory in trying to come up with words that adequately express what I experienced. It’s indescribable. I’d run second three years in a row [prior to that year]—I’d come close, and I thought I had an idea of what winning that race would be like, but I was sorely mistaken.
When we came off the turn and I put Lil E. Tee to task—and he dropped down and extended his stride—I had just a couple of horses in front of me, and we were catching them rapidly. When we went past [second-place finisher] Casual Lies, this feeling started way down in the pit of my stomach, and it grew with every stride. And when I crossed the finish line in front, I just exploded. I was overjoyed and just stood up and started thanking Jesus for allowing me to experience this. It was tremendous.
What would you like your legacy to be?
I’d like to be known as a man after God’s own heart.
