Juleps, giant hats and cigar smoke

By Ron Kantowski

Monday, May 5, 2008 | 2 a.m.

The Kentucky Derby is often called “The Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports.”

But it’s the hours leading up to them that make Derby Day exhilarating for Southern Nevada’s race and sports books.

Micah Roberts, the race and sports director at Sunset Station, says his book writes more betting tickets on Kentucky Derby Saturday than it does on Super Bowl Sunday.

And, as I would discover Saturday, when the favorite wins, not all of them wind up torn in half on the floor.

Tiptoe with a julep

It was about 2 o’clock when I walked into Sunset Station Saturday. The race and sports book already was starting to buzz.

It might have been because “The Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports” were less than a hour away. Or it might have been because Dee Dee, the mint julep girl, already had refilled her ginormous tank five times.

In the front of the sports book, horse racing fans were lined up four and five deep to place their bets. In the back of the book, horse racing fans were lined up four and five deep to help Dee Dee empty her tank.

“How many can we have?” said a matronly woman who talked like a Georgia football fan. Like most Georgia football fans, she wanted to make sure she received her limit.

Usually, the ingredients of a mint julep are sugar, water, mint, crushed ice and Kentucky bourbon. The ones Dee Dee were pouring also included a dash of Cointreau, a brand of triple sec liqueur. At least that’s what she said. And what the heck was she doing with that can of Sierra Mist?

“Oooh, that’s strong,” said the matronly woman, recoiling after taking a swig of what was in Dee Dee’s tank.

That Sierra Mist has a way of creepin’ up on ya’.

Hat attack

On the other side of the room, two women who appeared to be related also were struggling with their juleps.

They were sitting at the bar that divides the sports book from the rest of the casino. It’s not that Bonnie Thorn and her sister, Terri, were being antisocial. It was because their hats were so darn big that none of the horse racing fans could see around them.

It’s not an official Kentucky Derby without big hats and these gals definitely had big hats. My first thought as a Cubs fan was that if Alfonso Soriano wore a hat like these two, he’d never lose another fly ball in the sun. Not sure how he would look in the Sunday-go-to-meeting dress and pearls, though.

“It took us two days to get ready for a two-minute race,” said Terri. Or was it Bonnie?

Then her sister took a long draw on one of Dee Dee’s juleps.

“Oooh, that’s strong,” Bonnie said. Or was it Terri?

The expert

Roughly a quarter of the crowd of about 600 that jammed into the Sunset Station sports book were women or guys wearing Boston Red Sox caps. In other words, there were a lot of novices.

Tony Compiseno wasn’t one of those.

The Cleveland native, who grew up watching the ponies run at Thistledown in northern Ohio, was wearing a blue Secretariat cap and a blue Secretariat T-shirt with Big Red’s 1973 Triple Crown track records stenciled on back. He had been studying his Racing Form since early in the morning when he tossed back one of Dee Dee’s mint juleps with breakfast.

He didn’t think it was all that strong, which is one way you can tell tell a true railbird from the casual fan who “only goes to church on Christmas and Easter,” as Micah Roberts put it.

You can also tell a real horse player from the guys wearing Red Sox caps by the wad of bills in their money clip.

“Trifecta at Arlington,” Compiseno said. “Life is good. There will be no money issues today.”

I asked him who he liked in the Derby and he started handicapping the race, using terms such as speed horses and variants and mudders — well, he didn’t really say mudders, but you get the drift. Somewhere in there, I heard him say he liked Bob Black Jack, Eight Belles and Gayego.

In a few minutes they would load the horses into the starting gate.

“So tell me, Tony, how do you bet a trifecta?”

They’re off

It was a little past three and you could tell the Derby was getting ready to start because every TV screen in the place, even the one between the Pimlico and Major League Baseball odds boards that had been showing bowling, were now showing twin spires. I was still deciding where I was going to spend the next two minutes of my life when — too late — a bell sounded and they were off. I got stuck in the crowd way up front, next to a sweaty guy wearing a Southern Cal tank top who had hair growing everywhere except on top of his head.

“Go Cowboy Cal! Go Cowboy Cal!” the hairy guy kept shouting. That was the name of one of the horses running near the front. Hairy guy kept elbowing me and telling me he had Cowboy Cal at 39-1. After the third poke in the ribs, I had had enough. I headed for the back of the book where a guy wearing a light blue shirt and jeans was watching the race on TV through binoculars, which, I am quite certain, could only happen in Las Vegas. Or one of its suburbs.

I blinked and it was over. Cowboy Cal did not win. He finished ninth. I wanted to find the hairy guy and elbow him in the ribs and tell him “Too bad it’s not the “Most Exciting One Minute and 15 Seconds in Sports.”

Nobody saw the horse that finished second, Eight Belles, the filly, break down. People were jumping up and down, clutching their winning tickets.

That’s just the way it is in Las Vegas.

The novice

A few minutes after the race, I kept hearing these fizzing sounds. Ashes from big stogies were being flicked into plastic cups containing mint julep remnants. People were standing in long lines at the betting windows again. Apparently, everybody and their mother wearing a big hat had wagered on the favorite, Big Brown.

I noticed three young girls hugging and high-fiving as if they had just won a date with Justin Timberlake.

The one in the middle, who appeared to be the leader, had five tickets in her hand. Three were winners.

“I’m going to invest it wisely in a high-yield savings account,” Jenny Jones said about what she planned to do with her winnings.

“She’s gonna put it all on black, that’s what she’s gonna do,” said a man wearing a blue Secretariat cap and a blue Secretariat T-shirt.

It was Tony Compiseno. Jenny Jones’ uncle.

Life is good.

The aftermath

Suddenly, the long lines at the betting windows were gone. Dee Dee’s tank was empty and there would be no more refills.

The race and sports book, at least the race half, was mostly empty. Other than the plastic cups with ashes and mint julep remnants floating in them, it could have been any other day when there’s not a Triple Crown race.

It still smelled like cigars, though. A guy sitting behind one of the little TV monitors, where the hard core horse players sometimes gamble away the rent money, had just fired up another one. Dean Kaplan had a pocketful of Carlos Torano cigars that were fatter than sausages. Next to horse racing, smoking fat cigars is another “guy thing” I know next to nothing about. But Kaplan said the Torano is a good cigar. It’s hand-rolled in Cuba.

He handed one to his nephew. It wasn’t long before they turned the sports book into Fidel Castro’s humidor. Or the Elks Lodge on Friday night.

Up on the big screen, the ninth race at Turf Paradise was about to begin.