Hunter S. Thompson, Racing Journalist
Racing has always inspired great writing; it can be credited with inspiring gonzo journalism as well. On assignment in Louisville for the 1970 Kentucky Derby, Hunter Thompson, who killed himself at his home on Sunday, was stricken with a bad case of writer’s block: “I’d blown my mind, couldn’t work,” he said in an interview. “So finally I just started jerking pages out of my notebook and numbering them and sending them to the printer. I was sure it was the last article I was ever going to do for anybody.” That would probably be true for most writers, but Thompson’s Derby piece, “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved,” was savage, acerbic, and “a breakthrough in journalism,” capturing the chaos and craziness of American racing’s most debauched day with Thompson and his illustrator, Ralph Steadman, right at the center:
“The bars and dining rooms are also in ‘F&G,’ and the clubhouse bars on Derby Day are a very special kind of scene. Along with the politicians, society belles and local captains of commerce, every half-mad dingbat who ever had any pretensions to anything at all within five hundred miles of Louisville will show up there to get strutting drunk and slap a lot of backs and generally make himself obvious. The Paddock bar is probably the best place in the track to sit and watch faces. Nobody minds being stared at; that’s what they’re in there for. Some people spend most of their time in the Paddock; they can hunker down at one of the many wooden tables, lean back in a comfortable chair and watch the ever-changing odds flash up and down on the big tote board outside the window. Black waiters in white serving jackets move through the crowd with trays of drinks, while the experts ponder their racing forms and the hunch bettors pick lucky numbers or scan the lineup for right-sounding names. There is a constant flow of traffic to and from the pari-mutuel windows outside in the wooden corridors. Then, as post time nears, the crowd thins out as people go back to their boxes….
“The Derby, the actual race, was scheduled for late afternoon, and as the magic hour approached I suggested to Steadman that we should probably spend some time in the infield, that boiling sea of people across the track from the clubhouse. He seemed a little nervous about it, but since none of the awful things I’d warned him about had happened so far — no race riots, firestorms or savage drunken attacks — he shrugged and said, ‘Right, let’s do it.’
“To get there we had to pass through many gates, each one a step down in status, then through a tunnel under the track. Emerging from the tunnel was such a culture shock that it took us a while to adjust. ‘God almighty!’ Steadman muttered. ‘This is a … Jesus!’ He plunged ahead with his tiny camera, stepping over bodies, and I followed, trying to take notes.
“Total chaos, no way to see the race, not even the track … nobody cares. Big lines at the outdoor betting windows, then stand back to watch winning numbers flash on the big board, like a giant bingo game.
“Old blacks arguing about bets; ‘Hold on there, I’ll handle this’ (waving pint of whiskey, fistful of dollar bills); girl riding piggyback, T-shirt says, ‘Stolen from Fort Lauderdale Jail.’ Thousands of teen-agers, group singing ‘Let the Sun Shine In,’ ten soldiers guarding the American flag and a huge fat drunk wearing a blue football jersey (No. 80) reeling around with quart of beer in hand.
No booze sold out here, too dangerous … no bathrooms either. Muscle Beach … Woodstock … many cops with riot sticks, but no sign of a riot. Far across the track the clubhouse looks like a postcard from the Kentucky Derby.
“We went back to the clubhouse to watch the big race. When the crowd stood to face the flag and sing ‘My Old Kentucky Home,’ Steadman faced the crowd and sketched frantically. Somewhere up in the boxes a voice screeched, ‘Turn around, you hairy freak!’ The race itself was only two minutes long, and even from our super-status seats and using 12-power glasses, there was no way to see what really happened to our horses. Holy Land, Ralph’s choice, stumbled and lost his jockey in the final turn. Mine, Silent Screen, had the lead coming into the stretch but faded to fifth at the finish. The winner was a 16-1 shot named Dust Commander.”
Thompson, a native of Louisville, may be best known for the brash and drug-fueled prose of such works as “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” and “Hell’s Angels,” but he began his journalism career as a sports writer and was a regular columnist for ESPN.com in recent years, where he wrote about the Derby a couple more times in his irreverent style, as in this 2002 piece:
“The Fixed beast will always win, if word comes down from the top. It is a natural law, and in this case it translates to bet Johannesburg Now, while you can still get 50-1 odds. And if you can’t find a reliable bookie, find a friend who believes you are honest and thinks he is pretty smart about horses — then fleece the poor bastard just for the fun of it…. Hell, bet with two or three good friends who trust you. Why not? They would do the same thing to you if they knew who was going to win the Derby. Yes sir, this is horse-racing season, and a lot of people are going to get fleeced before it’s over. That is what the Sport of Kings is all about.
“And now that you mention it, how about this ugly flock of nags that we have in the Derby this year? What happened to the 2002 crop of thoroughbreds? And why is Sports Illustrated saying all those horrible things about Johannesburg? Are they in on the Fix?”
Related: Steadman recalls meeting Thompson at the Derby for the Independent:
“I had only just arrived in America in late April of 1970, and was staying with a friend in the Hamptons to decompress. I got a call from JC Suares, art editor of Scanlan’s Magazine in New York. He said: ‘How’d ya like to go to the Kentucky Derby with an ex-Hell’s Angel who just shaved his head, and cover the race? His name is Hunter S. Thompson and he wants an artist to nail the decadent, depraved faces of the local establishment who meet there. He doesn’t want a photographer. He wants something weird and we’ve seen your work.’
“The editor, Don Goddard, had been the New York Times’ foreign editor and he thought I was naive enough to take this on. I was looking for work — so I went. Finding Hunter — or indeed anyone covering the prestigious Kentucky Derby who is not a bona fide registered journalist — was no easy matter, and trying to explain my reasons for being there was even worse, especially as I was under the impression that this was an official trip and I was an accredited press man.
“Why shouldn’t I think that? I assumed that Scanlan’s was an established magazine. I had been watching someone chalk racing results on a blackboard while I sipped a beer and I was about to turn and get myself another when a voice like no other I had ever heard cut into my thoughts and sank its teeth into my brain. It was a cross between a slurred karate chop and gritty molasses.
“‘Um-er, you-er wouldn’t be from England, er, would you-er? An artist maybe-er -what the …!’
“I had turned around and two fierce eyes, firmly socketed inside a bullet-shaped head, were staring at a strange growth I was nurturing on the end of my chin. ‘Holy shit!’ he exclaimed. ‘They said I was looking for a matted-haired geek with string warts and I guess I’ve found him.’
“We took a beer together and sat in the press box. Somehow, he had got our accreditation and we were in. He asked me if I gambled and I said only once, in 1952. I put two shillings on Early Mist to win in the 1953 Grand National. And it did. I picked a horse but didn’t bet and it won so then I picked another, backed it with a dollar, and lost. ‘That’s why I don’t gamble,’ I said.”
