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NOT TO DERBY

PJ CARROLL

I have always found this to be the most confusing Notre Dame tradition, but perhaps there is something to it. Maybe it is awesome to wake up at 5 a.m. after one of your final Friday nights at Notre Dame. To board a bus thrown together by some slightly more organized friend of a friend. And then it is just a casual little nine-hour jaunt down to the Colonel’s country, where the air smells of 11 herbs and spices. This will be the better of your two drives.

The Derby lost me at 5 a.m., but let’s picture what happens when you deboard at Churchill Downs. Sounds prestigious, the magical moment you’ve all been waiting for. You try to peer past the roiling sea of Fascinators (the ladies’ hats) and pastel Brooks Brothers suits, but they seem to stretch on forever. You wait and wait to break free, to see the famous scene, but you never will. That’s right, students who attend the derby never see a horse. Instead, they find themselves transformed into well-dressed pigs, rooting through thick mud to fight for a place at the trough, where every Mint Julep costs $23.

After hearing the winning horse announced over the loudspeaker, you and your thinning wallet then board the bus north, as night falls and a hangover sets over the riders. You try to sleep but are constantly awoken by the rushed footsteps of vomiters directed toward the bathroom. The back of the bus sounded so cool this morning, but now you can hear everything. Everything. You will continue through the night, arriving back to the scariest Sunday of your life, that Monday final looming large.

I say pay the FOMO and create a great weekend for yourself. Drag a TV outside and air the Derby yourself; you might actually see a horse. After all, you can wear one of those sassy hats wherever you desire. There is always a better darty to be had here in the Bend, and we have so few weekends left here. But hey, if you hate having money and fun, I get it, you should go.

TO DERBY

TESS REINHART

I’m not usually one for academic smack talk, buttttttt my opponent is a washed, fifth-year. Live a little, PJ! Congrats on securing a job, though. Must be nice.

Unlike Uncle Carroll, the Kentucky Derby was one of my most highly anticipated events of senior year. The last time I was in the Bluegrass State was on our fall break drive to the Smoky Mountains. We intentionally detoured to a Kentucky Buc-ee’s for an unneeded pitstop, and may I just say. … That is one fine establishment! If the Derby is half the experience that Buc-ee’s was, I will be one happy horse.

Beyond that, my sister grew up riding horses, and I was her severely allergic spectator and supporter. I’ve seen her get thrown from the back of a horse (or as the equestrian community says, “bucked”), so I know a thing or two.

But enough about me. Part of what makes the Derby so exciting is how the entire senior class rallies around the experience, thanks to the three D’s: dress, drinks and dramatics.

I love an excuse to dress up, and you may not know this about me, but I was quite the little prepster back in my day. My mom was notorious in our neighborhood for dressing my sisters and me in identical dresses that looked like a Vineyard Vines trunk show explosion. What a beautiful, full-circle moment for senior year Tess to look back on (and look like) her younger self.