WIN, PLACE AND
SHOW OUT
NOTED UK ALUMNI OPEN THEIR DOORS AND RAISE THE ROOF TO GENERATE MORE THAN $17 MILLION ON BEHALF OF DIABETES AND OBESITY RESEARCH
By Dan Knapp
I
n the hours before his chestnut colt, Aristides, galloped to victory at the inaugural Kentucky Derby, thoroughbred owner and notorious gambler Henry Price McGrath was already celebrating. While luxuriating beneath a dense grove of locust trees on his Lexington stud farm known as McGrathiana — now home to the University of Kentucky’s Coldstream Research Campus — McGrath and fellow silk hat-wearing gentry gorged on a feast of burgoo, mutton and bourbon. Lots of bourbon. This lavish tradition continues a century-and-a-half later throughout the Commonwealth as a ritual known as the Derby Eve Party. Some Derby eve festivities are sedate, dignified affairs; others can generously be characterized as “raucous” or “hedonistic.” Most fall somewhere in the middle. Regardless of the size, menu or guest list, these bacchanals all pay tribute to the Sport of Kings. Only one event, however, can lay
claim to the highest order of both festivity and charity: the annual Barnstable-Brown Derby Eve Gala. The Barnstable-Brown Gala emerged out of necessity when Derby-themed parties were de rigueur for the Kentucky social elite. Despite Louisville’s storied Churchill Downs racetrack being the site of the Run for the Roses since the beginning in 1875, most Derby gaiety was concentrated 80 miles to the east in Lexington. Former Wrigley’s Doublemint Gum spokesmodels Patricia “Tricia” Barnstable-Brown and Priscilla “Cyb” Barnstable — along with their mother, Wilma “Willie” Barnstable — took it upon themselves to fill a merrymaking void for Louisvillian society closer to home. Tricia and her husband, physician and educator David E. Brown, first opened their tony mansion overlooking Spring Drive to a few hundred celebrants in 1989. Leveraging contacts from the twins’ years working in Hollywood, the black-tie gala started to
20 K ENTUCKY A LU MNI MAGAZ I NE Summer 2023