Kentucky
Two hundred years after it was wrested from the Native Americans, Kentucky still hasn't quite decided whether it belongs in the North or the South. Both of the rival presidents during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, were born here, and divisions were acute between slave-owning farmers and the merchants who depended on trade with the nearby cities of the industrial North. While the state remained officially neutral, more Kentuckians joined the Union army than the Confederates. After the war, Kentucky sided with the South in its hostility to Reconstruction, and has tended to follow southern political trends.
Kentucky's rugged beauty is at its most appealing in the mountainous east and the small historic towns of the Bluegrass Downs, with visits enlivened by the varied attractions of bourbon whiskey, thoroughbred horses, and bluegrass music. Louisville, home of the Kentucky Derby, is a busy manufacturing and arts center; the more reserved Lexington, eighty miles east, is a major horse-breeding market.
The Kentucky Derby
The Kentucky Derby is one of the world's premier horse races; it's also, as Hunter S. Thompson put it, "decadent and depraved." Derby Day itself is the first Saturday in May, at the end of the two-week Kentucky Derby Festival. Since 1875, the leading lights of Southern society have gathered at Churchill Downs, three miles south of downtown, for an orgy of betting, haute cuisine, and mint juleps in the plush grandstand, while tens of thousands of the beer-guzzling proletariat cram into the infield. Apart from the $40 infield tickets available on the day – offering virtually no chance of a decent view – all seats are sold out months in advance. The actual race, traditionally preceded by a mass drunken rendition of "My Old Kentucky Home," is run over a distance of one and a quarter miles, lasts barely two minutes, and offers around a million dollars in prize money. Churchill Downs also hosts thoroughbred races from May to July, and from October to November ( 502/636-4400 or 1-800/283-3729).
The excellent hands-on Kentucky Derby Museum (mid-March to Nov Mon– Sat 7am–5pm, Sun noon–5pm; Dec to mid-March Mon– Sat 9am–5pm, Sun noon–5pm; $9; 502/637-7097, www.derbymuseum.org), next to Churchill Downs at 704 Central Ave, will appeal to horseracing enthusiasts and neophytes alike. Admission includes a magnificent audiovisual display that captures the Derby Day atmosphere on a 360° screen and you can take a tour of the racecourse for an extra $6.
Discover more to see and do in Kentucky at www.roughguides.co.uk
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