Books get down and Derby
In the three hours before they put the horses in the starting gate and jockey Calvin Borel’s teeth in a jar, I dropped in on 15 Las Vegas-area race and sports books Saturday. The idea was not to see how many ball caps or T-shirts or Secretariat bobblehead dolls I could pick up for making a $20 wager, but to soak in as much Kentucky Derby atmosphere or cigar smoke as I could handle.
I started on the Strip before heading downtown and then back toward Henderson, which is sort of like an old Kentucky home, only without the ripe corn tops and the blooming meadows. While people do get misty-eyed talking about their old Henderson homes, it’s usually because TIMET is fouling the ozone above them while converting rutile ore into titanium ingots.
If I learned anything from the experience, it’s that Kentucky Derby Saturday is the one day of the year you can’t sit in the little race book cubicles and watch the Yankees or Red Sox on the TVs reserved for horseplayers, because there are horseplayers sitting in them.
And if the Kentucky Derby is “The Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports,” then “The Most Exciting Seven Minutes in Sports” was racing from Sunset Station to Fiesta Henderson so I wouldn’t miss the race.
THREE UP
■ CAESARS PALACE: There were velvet ropes all over the place, preventing certain people from accessing certain areas. There was linen on the table tops and pretentiousness in the air. That Miller High Life delivery guy wouldn’t have liked it. But if you were visiting from Wisconsin, it’s still gonna be cool to tell the gang at the cheese shop that you watched the Kentucky Derby at Caesars Palace.
■ SUNSET STATION: The sports book is much bigger than the Hooters here, which is a good thing, at least on Derby day. This is the place two years ago where I saw a guy checking out the odds — or perhaps the Hooters girls — with binoculars. He wasn’t there this year. Neither was the cart where they made cheap mint juleps with Sierra Mist instead of water. But they had hot dogs for a buck, there were lines at all the windows, and it smelled like a cigar. On Derby day, that’s a good thing.
■ FIESTA HENDERSON: To paraphrase Judy Garland, “There’s No Place Like Close to Home.” Bud Light for $1; mint juleps, made with water instead of Sierra Mist, for $2. Every seat taken. Every TV tuned to the Derby. People yelling, people screaming, people jumping up and down. And that was just to get the attention of the cocktail waitress.
THREE DOWN
■ O’SHEA’S: This is still my favorite place to go when I get stuck visiting aunts and uncles and old high school history teachers who are staying on the Strip. You usually can’t go wrong with leprechauns hawking $2 Guinness and shooters called Irish Car Bombs out front. But Bob Costas’ face on the big screen in the Derby viewing area had a dreadful green tint to it. The guy at the bar said it was raining at Churchill Downs and/or Costas was coming down with something. Like the Irish Car Bombs, I wasn’t buying it.
■ FLAMINGO HILTON: They had the biggest screen I saw all day set up in a dark lounge called Bugsy’s Cabaret, adorned by those maroon crushed velvet drapes you might see at an old theater. Not a bad setup. Totally retro. I half expected Virginia Hill to come walking in. Alas, they weren’t opening the doors until 2 p.m. And they didn’t have leprechauns hawking Car Bombs.
■ FOUR QUEENS: The sports book at this downtown casino is more like a sports page. It consists of five tiny circular tables and three grease pencil odds boards in a small clearing between slot machines and Hugo’s Cellar. The sports book at the Four Queens reminds me of a Texaco on the interstate when you have stomach cramps. There are better places to go. But in an emergency, it will have to do.
Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at
rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352.
