The Kentucky Derby, the longest continually run sporting event in the US, is known as the most exciting two minutes in sports, but the preparation for those two minutes takes months of work by hundreds of people. At the helm of all that planning is the Churchill Downs’ Board of Directors.
Bob Fealy, one member of that board, will be attending his 12th Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky., on May 7, but before he headed south, he spent a few days relaxing at his summer home in Jefferson.
“Until you see it, and you’re there, it’s hard to relate.” Fealy said of the Derby, “When the race starts, it’s electric.”
More than 150,000 people attend the race, which he said is “bigger than Christmas, in Louisville.”
As a member of the board of directors, Fealy will watch the race from a luxury box, which he said is “always filled with some interesting characters.” Fealy has sat with Hank Aaron – a “wonderful gentleman,” Fealy said – Bill Clinton, George Bush, Michael Jordan and Jason Alexander. “My favorite was a few years ago, we sat about 25 feet from the Queen of England,” Fealy said. ‘It’s just a great place to go and watch people.”
Fealy, who lives in a suburb of Chicago, has been on the Churchill Downs Board of Directors since 2000.
Fealy is the President of the Duchossois Group, a manufacturer of consumer products -garage door openers, doorbells and home security systems. In 2000, the owner of the Duchossois Group, Dick Duchossois, sold his racetrack to Churchill Downs in exchange for a 25 percent share of the company.
At that time, Fealy was given a seat on Churchill Downs’ Board of Directors.
Fealy grew up on a farm in Ohio and his family boarded a few horses, but he really had no experience in horse racing prior to joining the board.
“It’s been fascinating,” Fealy said. “There’s still a lot of mystique around horseracing. People find a romanticism that goes along with these beautiful animals.”
He said the biggest surprise for him was the passion that people have for their horses.
“You also never see the personalities of the jockeys,” Fealy said. “People don’t realize how athletic they have to be. There’s a huge amount of strategy, and boy, you have to have some courage.”
Bringing the jockeys to the forefront is something the Churchill Downs’ Board has been working on, Fealy said. They’re also working to tackle some of the more pressing issues affecting horseracing, such as the medication of horses, adjusting government regulations and broadening the sport’s audience.
In the past, horses were given a variety of performance enhancing drugs, as well as treatment for conditions like pain prior to running. The sport is currently working to put consistent rules in place governing these medications.
“Twenty years ago, about 90 percent of betting was done on the track,” Fealy said. “Now, about 90 percent is done off track. We’re exploring ways to bring more people to track,” such as shifting the races to the hours when people are available: “Not 1 p.m. on a Wednesday,” Fealy said.
Fealy and his wife, Rose Fealy, first came to Jefferson in 1970s. Now, they own several cabins on the lake and a home on Washington Road. “We’ve moved around a lot over the years, but this is the one place that’s been constant,” he said.
“There’s an interesting mix of people,” Fealy said. “Our house is full of local art, there’s great food, salt of the earth people…It’s a much different place than Chicago.”
Bob and Rose Fealy both said they come here to relax. “It has a charm you can’t find anywhere else,” Bob Fealy said.
