“Once it gets in your blood, it’s in there” | Sylvia Arnett

The end of our series (for now…?) takes us to the places racetrack workers go at the end of their workday: juke joints. Emma Pearl’s, “the chippy joint,” and their descendent, Syl’s Lounge. We meet Sylvia Arnett, who grew up just north of Churchill Downs in a neighborhood called “The Hill.” We FINALLY stump Sam Alexander on something (“I've been coming on this spot I'm on right now since I was 13 years old,” Sam says, standing in a spot where there is noticeably no hill. “And now I'm 70 and never really knew why they call it The Hill.”) And we learn about the legendary Jake Bachelor and his horse, Naughty Jake, AKA “the horse that almost ran.”