JC / Railbird

Readings Archive

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….

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Posted in Readings on February 22, 2005

Readings: Runyon II

Say, have they turned back the pages
Back to the past once more?
Back to the racin’ ages
An’ a Derby out of the yore?
Say, don’t tell me I’m daffy,
Ain’t that the same ol’ grin?
Why, it’s that handy
Guy named Sande,
Bootin’a winner in!

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Posted in Readings on January 27, 2005

Readings: Runyon I

For forty years he’s followed the track
And played them hosses to Helenback
And they ain’t a thing he shouldn’t know, that bloke.
So I sez to him, “I want advice
On beating this dodge at a decent price.
And what have you got to tell me, old soak?”
“Well, son,” he sez, “I’ve bet and won,
And I’ve bet and lost, and when all is done
I’m sure of one thing — and only one —
         All hawss players must die broke!”

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Posted in Readings on January 22, 2005

Readings: Liebling

“The second dodge of the Bite was quite classic. Early in life his back was broken during a Tornado at his place of nativity down South, notoriously the home of high winds, viz., Gainesville, Georgia. Nobody ever had such a magnificently large Hunch as the Bite believe me.
“And be assured the Bite made the Hunchback Business pay him better than it had Lou Chaney, who played Quasimodo in the silent films. He made a play for the lady Horse Players only. He bought two suits a year, one for the summer and one for the chilly days of autumn, generally at thirty-five dollars each. But he paid five dollars extra for a very special alteration. Where the coat rested plumb atop the Hunch this mastermind contrived a large Patch Pocket that opened and closed on a shiny zipper about six inches long.

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Posted in Readings on January 8, 2005