What calms a nervous Derby horse? These playful goats on Churchill Downs' backside

Darcy Costello | Courier Journal

Show Caption Hide Caption Kentucky Derby 2019: Churchill Downs goats ease horses before races Goats can be found eating grass or chilling in horses stalls on the backside of Churchill Downs, acting as a safety blanket for nervous racehorses.

All eyes are on the racehorses during Kentucky Derby Week. But in barns on the backside of Churchill Downs, you might find a behind-the-scenes animal napping in a horse's stall: goats.

There's Lily, who gets in trouble for eating flowers and is known for headbutting people who stop scratching her.

And there's her pal, Roxanne, whose horns get painted pink for the Kentucky Oaks and who has a sixth sense for knowing which horses are running.

You might see Trevor, the ornery, one-horned goat, who some say likes to eat Doritos. And, if you're lucky, you'll spot Oliver and Max, the baby goat duo, sprinting around — maybe even with a stuffed jockey on one of their backs.

Goats, their owners say, can serve as companions for a nervous thoroughbred. Much like barn ponies, miniature donkeys or other animals that can help steady jumpy racehorses, goats make for a soothing presence in the stall.

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Helen Pitts-Blasi, the trainer who owns Lily, said she got her goat years ago for a filly that was stall walking, pacing back and forth in her stall without settling down. Lily helped her to calm down, almost like a "security blanket."

Later, Lily grew close to another filly named Athena, Pitts-Blasi said, and she'd find the horse covering up the goat with straw on cold days.

So, what makes Lily Lily? What makes horses fall for her as a companion?

"Well, she's fat, for one thing," Pitts-Blasi said, laughing. "When she was little, she used to jump up and fit in my feed cart. But she no longer fits."

Lily tends to get along best with fillies, female horses, Pitts-Blasi said, but she doesn't let them push her around.

"If a horse tries to mess with her, she'll turn around and rear up at them," Pitts-Blasi said. "She stands her ground."

That goes for other goats, too. Lily and Roxanne will play-fight with each other and race around the barns at Churchill Downs, which is a quasi-home for both. The two met when they shared a barn together a few years back, and now Lily searches Roxanne out when they both bunk in Louisville's Churchill Downs.

Lynn and David Vance inherited Roxanne when she was young from an owner who passed along a horse, Lynn Vance said. Like Lily, Roxanne can have a bit of a mean streak when it comes to people.

"You'll be petting her and then all the sudden she'll decide she doesn't want you anymore. And she'll horn you. She's over it," said Vance, who recommended staying close to a rake in case Roxanne got into a mood.

"She will just have her mean periods when she doesn't want everybody near her. She can charge you pretty good," Vance added.

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The same can't be said for her relationship with horses, Vance said, where no one is the "boss" and both seem to respect each other. Roxanne is good at sniffing out horses that are set to race that day, almost rotating her calming services around the barn.

On a recent morning at Churchill Downs, Roxanne stubbornly stayed in a stall with Goodbye Earl, a filly who she'd decided to be roommates with for the day. Goodbye Earl (Vance said the name was likely a Dixie Chicks reference, for the record) happily tried to chew camera equipment, but Roxanne watched warily from the dark end of the stall, before cuddling up in the straw.

Unable to coax her out, Vance shrugged.

"She doesn't really eat anything like people food, so you can't really tempt her with anything," Vance said. "The only thing is paper. She'll nibble a little bit."

The same can't be said for Trevor, who allegedly snacks on Doritos or hot potato chips, or for Max, one of the baby goats, who loves to chomp on peppermints, his owner, exercise rider Kristina Taylor said.

Max and his shadow, Oliver, are too young and too rambunctious to do much horse calming just yet — "it's not the best case for a nervous horse to have a really crazy goat in the stall," Taylor explains — but that's the long-term goal.

For now, they'll sniff the racehorses and try to steal the horse's feed. They're troublemakers, Max in particular, Taylor said, and they can often be found spooking fillies when they're walking in the afternoon.

The baby goats are also unafraid to pick a fight with Trevor, who's easily twice their size and lives in the barn next door. Max has horns, but Taylor said she doesn't think he's realized it yet.

His favorite thing, for now, is to race from one end of the barn to the other, perhaps inspired by the racehorses that surround him day in and day out.

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"You think goats can't sprint? This thing can," Taylor said, laughing.

"I never in my life thought I would be able to say I'm a goat mom," said Taylor, who fed Oliver from a baby bottle, "but I do not regret the purchase of buying a goat."

In time, the two will likely become more mellow, like a Lily or Roxanne, happy to curl up on a bale of hay and snooze through the afternoon, pleased to be around the action without partaking.

"She'll lay at (a horse's) feet, or she'll pick a corner in the stall, and that'll kind of be her little house," Pitts-Blasi said about Lily, shortly before finding her curled up in the back of the barn, unconcerned as workers bustled around her.

"With a nervous horse, (it's just about) having it there. Whether it be in the stall with them, or just outside. It's just like a security blanket, basically."

Darcy Costello: 502-582-4834; dcostello@courier-journal.com; Twitter: @dctello. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/darcyc.