The Derby Day breakfast rotates yearly between Locust Grove, a 55-acre historic site that incorporates the handsome brick farmhouse and grounds established in 1790 by the Croghan family, and Farmington, a 14-room Federal-style home on 18 acres on Bardstown Road east of the city. "We are fortunate to have two such beautiful properties for our event," says Rice. Money raised at the breakfast, the Foundation's major fundraiser, supports upkeep and education at the four Foundation properties (in addition to Locust Grove and Farmington, the Foundation owns Whitehall, a 15-room antebellum mansion, and Edison House, a shotgun home where Thomas Alva Edison once lived). This year's breakfast will be held at Farmington.
A spring rain a few days before last year's event created some moments of anticipatory anxiety but in the end served only to intensify the bright green of early spring grass and to water the banks of irises that fill Locust Grove's gently rolling property. The 160-foot-long white breakfast tent, pitched on the crest of a grassy slope between the house and a small walled family cemetery, filtered the clear early May sunlight of a perfect race day. Vistas of dogwoods, irises, and lilacs beyond the property's log outbuildings created a living backdrop visible through the tent's open sides. To one side of the tent, traditional hammered dulcimer players filled the air with Kentucky tunes as a professional handicapper circulated among the guests offering racing tips. Dapper men dressed in blazers and straw boaters or panama hats and women in elegant millinery trimmed with ribbons and flowers found their places at round tables covered in cheerful blue and green tablecloths and decorated with informal arrangements of cut flowers, foliage, container plants, and fruit. "Everybody's always excited to be there," says Starks. "It's a great day."
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