Smith: 20 years later, Cavonnier holds court out in a meadow

Know what next Wednesday is?

My birthday, yes. Thank you for remembering.

But that’s not what I’m thinking of.

May 4 is the 20th anniversary of one of the closest, most thrilling finishes ever at the Kentucky Derby. The nation held its breath as Sonoma County’s greatest racehorse, Cavonnier, caught his.

Cathy Vicini of Santa Rosa was there at Churchill Downs with her husband and son and her parents, the late Robert and Barbara Walter. Cavonnier was foaled three years earlier at the Walters’ Vine Hill Ranch near Sebastopol.

Prior to the Kentucky Derby, the theatrical gelding trained by Bob Baffert had won California’s El Camino Real Derby and Santa Anita Derby. His run at Louisville had the Walter and Vicini families and all of his admirers back home in Sonoma County transfixed.

Cavonnier and the stallion Grindstone finished ahead of the pack, nose to nose.

Recounted the Washington Post, “The finish was so close that the 142,668 spectators at Churchill Downs and the television audience could not decipher the photo finish.”

Recalls Cathy Vicini, now co-owner of Trecini Winery, “The suspense was amazing.”

There are those who believed, and still believe, that the finish was a dead heat. But Grindstone was declared the winner.

Still, Cavonnier emerged as ever more Sonoma’s hero. Today he’s 23 and sharing a life of leisure with other horses at a west county ranch.

Reports Vicini, “As my mother would say, he’s out telling the younger ones all about it.”

HHHHHH

A HORN TO TOOT: When he was new to Elsie Allen High School a few years back, Brandon Cowen knew he wanted to learn to play an instrument. Problem: he didn’t have one and he couldn’t afford to get one.

Now a Santa Rosa Junior College student active in the college’s symphonic band, Brandon is hugely grateful to Elsie Allen music maestro Kyle “Papa T” Thompson for introducing him to the Music for Schools program at the Luther Burbank Center.

The LBC program loaned the Elsie Allen freshman a trombone. Brandon took to it, trained hard, practiced long and became integral to the school’s jazz, concert and marching bands.

Now he’s playing his heart out at the JC and planning for a career as a what? A high-school music teacher.

A short while back, Brandon made a point of attending The Art of Dessert event, the elegant sweet-a-thon that over the years has raised more than ?$2.2 million for Music for Schools and the LBC’s other Education Through the Arts initiatives.

Though a poor college student, Brandon raised his hand amid the dessert gala’s donation appeal and contributed ?100 bucks for the benefit of other yearning young musicians without an instrument to play.

What the LBC program did “meant a lot to me,” he said. “It helped me do what I want to do, so I thought I’d pay it forward.”

HHHHHH

A PLUMBER’S LOT: Stopped behind a commercial van, I derived from the printing that the driver is a plumber specializing in those water heaters that don’t store hot water but heat cold water in-line and on-demand.

It’s worthy, energy-saving work, one imagines, though ultimately a tankless job.

Chris Smith is at 521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.