Derby is a bad thing. Starting with a multi-million-dollar fireworks show that lasts all of thirty minutes a few weeks beforehand, people from all over the country flock to Louisville to bet on the relative movements of lanky quadrupeds, get drunk, and clog up the highways with their ugly cars. In order to entertain them and distract them so that they don’t completely drain the city’s booze supply, they are treated to a steamboat race, a hot air balloon race, a parade, and, just for good measure, a marathon. Then, after a week of this senseless revelry, they all congregate at a big old white thing built around a circular dirt road, wearing stupid hats and drinking sugar-bourbon, to walk said quadrupeds run around on the dirt for two minutes. Some money (more like, a lot of money) changes hands, and everyone goes home.

Oh, and if you’re lucky, a horse will trip and break its legs and we get to shoot it! Woohoo!