EVANSVILLE, IN (WFIE) -
Churchill Downs is just a few days away from hosting tens of thousands of people for the 138th Kentucky Derby.
Derby Day can be pretty chaotic, but there is plenty of time before and after race day to get a behind-the-scenes look at the track and all of its most famous spots.
The Kentucky Derby Museum offers three different tours of Churchill Downs.
For example, its Barn & Backside Tour lasts about an hour.
It allows guests to watch horses doing morning workouts on the track and see the "backside".
The backside is where all the horses training at Churchill Downs live.
"It's an inside look to see the grooms and the hot walkers interacting with those horses. It's a really intimate experience," explains Wendy Treinen, Director of Communications & Marketing for the Kentucky Derby Museum.
Each year only about 20 horses run in the Kentucky Derby, but there's room on the backside to stable more than 1400 of them.
About 800 workers take care of those horses and keep things running smoothly.
"It's a different side of racing," says Treinen.
On the Behind-the-Scenes tour, which lasts about 90 minutes, you can go inside the Jockey's locker room and see where all of their brightly-colored silks get washed.
"The silks are the shirts that the jocks wear. The colors represent the colors of the owner's stable. So the colors are indicative of who owns that horse," Treinen says.
Or, you can visit the highest point on the track, the Track Announcer's booth.
"The announcer's booth is no bigger than a very tiny closet. So you walk in and you're at the windows," says Treinen.
Treinen also says tour goers can even see a secret tool the announcer uses to call the races-- crayons.
"You'll see his box of crayons that he uses to color the program so he can track where the horses are on the racetrack and their identifying silks with the name of the horse," explains Treinen.
Back on ground level of Churchill Downs there's the famous, or perhaps infamous, infield.
On Derby Day it will hold about 100,000 people-- from college students to families.
"We say 99% of those folks never see a horse race, and 99% don't really care. They're there for the party," Treinen says.
One other high-profile spot you can check out on a tour-- Millionaires Row.
"Millionaires Row is typically a place that started hosting sort of the 'she-she' of the society world and now you'll see celebrities from all walks of life," says Treinen.
There are actually two Millionaires Rows at Churchill Downs-- and the name is a little deceiving.
They're not really rows. They're actually big banquet rooms with access to a balcony right near the finish line.
Copyright 2012 WFIE. All rights reserved.
