TINA L. SCOTT
EDITOR

The Merrill Rotary Club will hold its First Annual Run for the Roses Charity Watch Party on Saturday, May 7, 2022, from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the Eagles Club, 1205 Lake St. in Merrill, where attendees will be able to watch the 2022 Kentucky Derby and also raise money for a great cause.

Tickets are $50 each and are available at https://bit.ly/MerrillRotaryTickets.

This gala event is an invitation for attendees to “don their fancy hats and dapper attire and come grab a mint julep with Merrill Rotary.” The event will include a silent auction, wine and bourbon tasting, prizes for best hats and outfits, live music, and more. All proceeds will benefit the Trinity Daycare Expansion Project.

The Kentucky Derby
The Kentucky Derby, presented by Woodford Reserve (a brand of premium small batch Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey), is a top rank, Grade I stakes race for three-year-old Thoroughbred horses. Run on a dirt racetrack at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky, the race is one and one-quarter miles long. The first Kentucky Derby race was held May 17, 1875, and was sponsored by the Louisville Jockey Club. Taking place on the first Saturday in May every year, the Kentucky Derby is now the longest continually held sporting event in America, an American tradition, and one of the most prestigious horse races in the world.

Twenty horses compete, and those horses have earned their spot at the starting gate by acquiring race points from prior races (“the Road to the Kentucky Derby”). The Kentucky Derby winning purse is $2 million, and at the end of each Kentucky Derby, the Governor of the state of Kentucky traditionally awards the winner a trophy, and the winning horse is draped with a blanket of hundreds of red roses sewn together. (The red rose became the official flower of the Kentucky Derby in 1904.) In 1925, Bill Corum, a New York sports columnist, dubbed the Kentucky Derby the “Run for the Roses®,” and the name not only stuck but became synonymous with the Kentucky Derby.

Also dubbed “The Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports,” (two minutes is the approximate time it takes for the winning horse to run the race from the starting gate to the finish line), the Kentucky Derby is the first of three races within the Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing.

The Kentucky Derby typically draws about 155,000 attendees and has also become rich with other traditions, including dressing up for the occasion in stylish attire and a sassy or striking hat and sipping a mint julep. The Merrill Rotary Club is hoping attendees at their event will embrace these traditions, as well.

At Churchill Downs, a mint julep made by Woodford Reserve is rumored to cost about $1,000, and almost 120,000 of them are served over the two-day weekend of the race. The mint juleps served at the Rotary Club’s Charity Watch Party are guaranteed to be far less expensive, and the profits from this event go to a great cause, to help expand much-needed child care programs in the Merrill area.

Something tells me Dan Fogelberg’s popular 1982 song called “Run for the Roses” will also be played at the watch party at least once, and now I have that song stuck in my head. Thanks, Merrill Rotary Club! (I actually love that song.)