They were on the track at Churchill Downs. Rock was with two associates from the newspaper, circulation men he had known for twenty or more years, routinely said hello to, but whose names he couldn't recall and perhaps had never known, and they stood no more than fifty yards from the wire on the outside edge of the track as horses turned for home in the Kentucky Derby.
None of them knew why they were there. They couldn't even remember arriving in Louisville, but Rock felt a thud of hooves in his feet and heard the crowd begin to roar and didn't need a reason.
It was clear to them all that one horse had a substantial lead and was beginning to pull away. "Man, I hope that's American Pharoah," Rock said.
"Oh yeah, me to," one of his associates said.
They couldn't hear a track announcer and didn't know the horse's colors, so they couldn't be sure until he at last ran past them, when Rock made out the name American Pharoah on the saddle cloth as it bounced by.
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