Kevin Barton was not going to the Kentucky Derby this year.
He has major neck surgery scheduled for Thursday, May 7. His college buddies, the ones who usually make the trip with him, were not going. After 38 straight years in the Churchill Downs infield, Barton was ready to sit one out.
Then the messages started coming in.
Barton, 57, is the main moderator of a Kentucky Derby Facebook group with 48,000 members. He is originally from Louisville, went to college in Indianapolis and has lived in the Indian Rocks Beach area for the past 10 years. Every spring, his page fills up with first-timers panicking about the tickets they just bought — people who have heard the infield is wild, muddy and lawless, and are convinced they have made a mistake.
“They are lost and really upset when they hear that they bought these tickets thinking that they made a mistake,” Barton said. “After one hour of talking to me they feel so much better about the situation.”
This year, 36 of those first-timers, none of whom knew each other, asked Barton to host them in the infield. They came from Mississippi, North Carolina, New York, Massachusetts, Vermont and Florida, including a woman who had just moved to New Port Richey. One couple flew in from Australia. So did a separate Australian who did not know the couple.
Barton, five days from surgery, said yes.
“They talked me into coming because all of them were lost,” he said. “I’m having major neck surgery this Thursday (May 7), so at the last minute I decided to go and to host 36 Derby virgins without any of my friends in attendance.”
Then he made one more call. Hearing that NBC was deploying an infield reporter — John Fanta — for the first time, Barton pitched the network on the story himself. Fanta called him back the next day, and Barton and his 36 first-timers ended up in NBC’s pregame coverage of the 152nd Kentucky Derby.
Barton wore a hat with an Indian Rocks Beach nod for the segment.
“Technically I live in Largo, but our condo sits on the Intracoastal, so when you look out I see IRB,” Barton said. “That’s where I hang out the most, and this year I just wanted to wear something a little different for a shout-out back home to the Indian Rocks Beach people.”
Barton has been the first person inside the Derby gates almost every year, a streak that has earned him roughly 40 local TV interviews over the decades. He typically arrives at Churchill Downs between 1 and 3 a.m. and waits for the 9 a.m. gate opening. This year, he got there at 4 a.m. in 40-degree weather.
“Which is like 50 below to us now, being I’ve been in Florida for 10 years,” he said.
When the gates open, the choreography begins. The Churchill Downs infield is general admission, unreserved and famously crowded. Veterans bring rolls of yellow caution tape to rope off a patch of grass for their group before the masses arrive. The earlier the claim, the better the spot.
“Back in the day, as soon as the gates open you would have probably 100 runners running to the fence in the infield to block off a spot for their people that come later,” Barton said.
That runner has a name. He is called the gazelle.
“That is someone that usually is fleet of foot,” Barton said. “They just carry in their cellphone, which shows their ticket, and a roll of caution tape. They don’t carry any other items because they don’t want to be stopped by security.”
Barton’s own technique, the kind he passes to first-timers, is to run with his pants pockets pulled out so security has one less thing to check. Speed matters. So does looking like you have nothing to hide.
The gazelle’s counterpart arrives later, loaded down.
“The person that carries in the chairs and such, contraband and everything else, food, water if you bring in any, is called the mule,” Barton said. “So you have the gazelles and the mules.”
His advice to anyone thinking about the infield is blunt.
“If you don’t get there before 9:30 you won’t see a real horse the entire day,” he said.
This year’s Derby was won by Golden Tempo, a 23-1 long shot, with Cherie DeVaux becoming the first female trainer to win the Run for the Roses.