Visitors sit along the mouth of the infield entry tunnel at Churchill Downs just before the Derby race.

Dan Esch, of Omaha, Neb., tries to find a place to clean off after his duct tape outfit was shredded during some wrestling and horseplay in the mud of the infield at Churchill Downs.

6:33 p.m. – The Derby is over. Street Sense won.

The infield is nowhere near as crowded as it was at its peak and all around, people look tired and ready to go home or ready to move on to their next destination.

But as people depart, they look back at what was.

“It’s 100,000 people partying together, having a good time, and there were no fights that I saw,” said Nathan Minch, of Southgate, Ky.

Some made new friends.

Steve Fagas, of St. Louis, Mo., Keith Vibbert, of Louisville, and Peter Situ, of St. Louis, Mo., play a little impromptu music just before the Derby race. Fagas and Situ had just met Vibbert at Churchill Downs in the infield and the three decided to get together and play some music.

“Music is the universal language,” said Fagas. “Making use of that, we’ve become friends.”

And the feeling?

I can’t tell you.

“Look at our faces,” Fagas said, smiling. “You can’t put this into words.”

From left, Lucy Haymond and Becca Burrus, both of Louisville, trudge through mud in the infield at Churchill Downs. Rain from yesterday made much of the infield very soggy and the thousands of feet quickly turned much of the infield into a sloppy, muddy mess.

Why was it so muddy?

This is why:

Rain + lots of feet = lotsa mud.

But it wasn’t enough to stop some people.

Clad in leaf-pattern rain boots, Juli Larson and Claire Rhodes, both of Louisville, were well-prepared for the mess created by a mixture of the crowds in the infield and rainfall from the previous day in Churchill Downs’ infield.

And some people were clobbering others, though it was all in good fun.

Sporting a fake mustache and using a comb for a microphone, Hugh Jorgan, left, of Lexington, portrayed 1980s wrestler “Mean Gene” Okerlund, along with his friend Keith Stinson, who portrayed Hulk Hogan, and both posed several times with spectators in the infield at Churchill Downs before the Kentucky Derby.

Meanwhile, answering a question from Guinever,

So far the weather is holding up for you in the infield. Does it look like rain?

Guinever, it is pretty cloudy and some of the clouds look like they could drop something. Right now though, there’s no rain heading our way according to the weather forecasts and the weather radar I’ve been checking online.

Back to the action later…

Just about everyone I’ve talked to has made it pretty clear that the Derby is best a shared experience, and no one did it better than Tim Johnson.

Johnson, of Glen Ellen, Ill., plays frisbee with his son, Eliiott, on some grass in the infield at the Kentucky Derby. Johnson, a 1988 University of Kentucky graduate, started coming to the Derby when he was a student at Western Kentucky University and has been coming for 33 years straight. For his son, it was the fifth year at the Derby.

Listen to Tim Johnson talk about how his tradition is being passed on to the next generation.

For some people, the time at the derby was as profitable as it was fun.

Todd Dulaney, of Greensboro, N.C., celebrates at the end of the fourth race at Churchill Downs on Derby day. Dulaney won $479 on a trifecta bet in the race.

Against all odds, the sun came out for a little while and began baking the thousands of people out here celebrating the Derby. Leave it to one man to not only have some shade, but a nice way to enjoy it.

Joe Stariha, of Louisville, rests in a hammock in the infield at Churchill Downs in the afternoon before the Kentucky Derby. Stariha and some of his friends have been to the Derby for four straight years now and said that each year they’re readier for whatever comes. “We’re a little more prepared as the years go on,” he said.

Listen to Joe Stariha share about how past experience taught him and his friends to prepare for Derby festivities.

I’m not sure how much longer my feet can take this… But everyone’s still pretty friendly, and they seem to be getting friendlier as the afternoon goes on. I think the general atmosphere of having a good time is the main reason, but the alcohol probably helps a little too.

By way of response also, Mark asks:

How often will this be updated today? And is this a rain or shine blog?

Mark, this blog will be updated several times today, usually about every hour or hour and a half as time and technology permits. If the weather goes south, the backup plan is for me to use a Blackberry that one of the newspaper staffers has and use that to send text, uploading pictures and audio from the home base in the auxiliary media center here at Churchill Downs. I’m here to stay, rain or shine!

Meanwhile, the crowd is bustling with people who have decided to celebrate the day either in style, in comfort or in costume.

From left, Matt Sheeran AKA “Pepe Hernandez Rodriguez Valdez,” of Sacramento, Calif., Scott Jablonski, of Chicago, Ill. and Sean Smith, AKA “Pablo Hernandez,” stop to buy drinks at one of the vendors in the Churchill Downs infield at the Kentucky Derby.

Smith even took the act a step further with some fake facial hair.

Meanwhile, the facial hair was completely real elsewhere in the infield, along with a lot of brotherhood, a dash of ingenuity and a love for bourbon that doesn’t cost $9 a glass.

John Hollingsworth, of Columbus, Ohio, shows off a loaf of bread into which he baked an empty bourbon bottle so that he could avoid paying for drinks in the infield. After baking the bread, Hollingsworth filled the bottle and brought it inside.

Hollingsworth was one of 25 or 30 former college friends that come to the Derby each year as a reunion.

“Some of these guys, I don’t see except for this experience,” said Steve Shaffer, of Cincinnati, Ohio, one of Hollingsworth’s friends who came this year.

Hollingsorth said they’ve been coming to the Derby for 7 years now.

“Most of us started this tradition with no wives and no kids. Now we leave the wives and kids at home,” Hollingsworth said.

Listen to Hollingsworth talk about the experience and the tale of the bourbon bottle in the bread.

Hollingsworth and his friends also are each wearing a strip of electrical tape made to look like a barber’s sleeve garter. As part of a welcome to my first Derby, they gave me one too, proclaiming that I was forever welcome with their group.

The crowd is ever-larger and soon the real action will start, and whatever fears I had earlier are now gone. In their place is an anticipation of who else I’ll meet and the tales I’ll hear. It has only begun…

Sunshine has smiled on us a little bit this morning although clouds are looming on the horizon. The infield’s grounds are pretty soggy and as I said yesterday, bringing a poncho or buying one here would be a REALLY good idea.

Everyone is pretty excited and the crowds are very friendly, even the soldiers and police who are here to help keep the peace.

One of the things so far I’ve heard about the Derby is that people gather in the infield with family, and this is a regular event for them, a tradition, even.

Mark Sprowl, Brad Bensing, Tim Bensing, Kim Bensing, Matt Denny, Tina Denny and Justin Denny, all of Louisville, relax on some bricks in the Churchill Downs infield. Bensing has been coming to the downs with his family for 23 years and he and his family sit in the same spot every year.

Listen here to Tim Bensing talking about his family’s tradition of coming to the infield.

At left, Debbie Lee and Robin Warren, both of Lima, Ohio, cross a plank through some mud and water in the Churchill Downs infield at the Kentucky Derby. The threat of bad weather and the soggy conditions weren’t enough to keep the pair, and thousands of others, away from the Kentucky Derby experience. For Warren and Lee, it was their first time at the Derby.

Roger Henson, left, of Louisville, and Doug Thurneau, of St. Louis, Mo., relax in and soak in the cool morning air in the infield at Churchill Downs.

More people are pouring in as I speak. Stay tuned!

Nonetheless, the show must go on, the ponies must run and you have to know what’s going on from there, so here’s the scoop.

This blog will go LIVE! tomorrow at 9 a.m. It may actually start a little earlier so that any of you folks who plan to join in the infield action can have a bit of a sense of what it’s like. Right off the bat, I think I should let you know that umbrellas are NOT allowed at Churchill Downs, which is a bit of a bummer. They will have plenty of ponchos though, so if you need to get one there, they will be available.

Of course, the rain isn’t a sure thing.  Right now the eye-on-the-sky meteorologist folks are calling for a chance of showers and thunderstorms, with the odds of rain being at 50-50. Those are pretty good betting odds either way, but knowing Kentucky weather, being prepared either way is the safest way to go.

Anyway, I’m off to get prepared for tomorrow’s festivities (or insanity, depending on who you ask). I hope to see you all there!

*pauses to catch breath*

My name is Dariush Shafa and I will be blogging live from the Churchill Downs infield, complete with stories, photos and audio.

This year’s running of the Kentucky Derby is the 133rd Derby, and it promises to be very exciting already, even if you’re not a fan of horses running really fast. Famous celebrities are expected to turn out, and even the Queen of England is expected to attend the event this year.

For me, this is a first. I have never been to the Kentucky Derby and I’m pretty excited already. We have a week to go before the Derby, so I’m going to make good use of the time I have to get things set up.

Let’s kick off with some housekeeping:

- This is a live blog. On Saturday, I’ll be updating every half-hour to hour (that’s the plan so far, anyway) from the infield, making use of a trusty Dell laptop, my Motorola Razr V3 phone and all the battery life and cell signal I can hoard. I’ll also be shooting pictures of the action with a NikonD100 and taking audio with my Olympus WS-200S recorder. Any doubts about my supreme geek status should now be laid to rest.

- If you’re going to be in the infield at the Derby or know someone who will be, please leave a comment or drop me an e-mail (dshafa[at]gmail.com). I’d love to come over and chat and maybe even include you in my coverage of the festivities.

- Though the Kentucky Derby is very much about horses, this blog really won’t be. This blog will be a look at what happens at the center of the action, in the infield, where the festivities are at their pinnacle. If you were looking for information about the race itself and the runners, sorry.

- If you have anything else on your mind, please don’t hesitate to contact me. Feedback is most certainly welcome. If you know of a relevant blog related to the Derby or the horse industry, please feel free to send me the link and I’ll add it to the blogroll. Also, comments, suggestions and complaints are welcome. Feedback is welcome, but spam posts, obscenity and other things of this sort are not.

I hope you all visit the site on Derby day!