5/1/2021

My Friend & POTUS, JRB,

            It’s Sat. Are you going to watch the Kentucky Derby (KD) today? I usually do, thanks to my neighbor, who is fascinated by it. She’s an interesting person. To tell her story would take a book, but suffice it to say, she‘s from Boston & has cultivated “refined” tastes by reading the NYT & Town & Country. For some reason, she is so enamored of the KD that she used to put a TV in the park by her house so we could join her in watching it.

            I am ambivalent about spending any time attending to it. I am not a fan of ostentatious displays of wealth & given the spate of horse deaths at Santa Anita race track, I wonder if the whole thing involves cruelty to animals.

Watching this year will be even harder than usual since the favorite, Essential Quality (EQ), is owned by a guy who has imprisoned his daughters in his palace in Dubai. Did you know that one of those poor princesses was in the midst of an elaborate escape plan that included riding jet skis out into the ocean, when she was apprehended by the Sheikh’s henchmen? Even QE is avoiding him. Maybe you can help the princesses in some way.

            If I do watch, I will be comforted by the fact that EQ’s jockey, Luis Saez, is a kind soul who prays before races & had the good grace to accept the disqualification of his winning horse in the 2019 KD. That came after he lost his 17-year-old brother in a riding accident.

            I am also inclined to eschew the race due to the 147-year history of systemic racism of Churchill Downs. Louisville, itself, needs to heal the wounds from Breonna Taylor’s death at the hands of the police. Speaking of which, how are your efforts to reform policing going? I hope you’ll reach out to Tim Scott to find out about his meeting with the Floyd family.

            I might get sucked into the KD by EQ’s superior Beyer Speed Scores & my neighbor’s infectious enthusiasm for the pageantry of it all or I might pull weeds instead.

            Pray for Burma,