LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Barn 39 might finally get its Kentucky Derby winner. Ever since my younger brother, trainer Paul McGee, began stabling at Barn 39 on the Churchill Downs backstretch in the late 1990s, I’ve always hoped the Derby winner would be led out of there an hour or so before post time for the dramatic walk over. Alas, Todd Pletcher is occupying Barn 39 for the first time this spring. After a quarter-century, Paul’s horses are now stabled in Barn 33, where my media colleagues and I would station ourselves for so many years, waiting to interview Bob Baffert about this superhorse or that. My final Derby pick after 31 years writing and handicapping for Daily Racing Form is Tapit Trice, trained by Pletcher, who of course also has Forte as the race favorite, with Kingsbarns as a viable third entry. There’s a deep swirl of irony and context in there somewhere, the sort of racing story I know all too well. All the different angles and back stories meld into a complex concoction of joy and melancholy and emotion, everyone having their own unique perspectives on the same event. In a nutshell, racing is life. Derby Day 149 is my last day as a professional racing journalist after a total of 38 years, the early ones having been spent with the Baltimore Sun. This is the 50th straight Derby I will have attended, the first one coming at age 14, when I watched from the infield as Cannonade captured the 1974 running. In the next year or two, I’ll be writing a book about all I’ve seen and done in a lifetime at the racetrack; there are just too many good stories needing to be told or retold. I’ve spent most of my life in Louisville and Lexington, where I was the lead correspondent for the Form at Churchill and Keeneland since the fall of 1994, but if you tallied it all up, I probably spent about six months in California; nearly a year in both New Jersey and Arkansas; about three years in Chicago; even more than that in Florida; and even more than that in Maryland. Simply put, I lived the dream. Aside from working in a career I hand-picked from a very young age, I’ve got two incredible daughters, an unbelievable family, and more love than a guy could reasonably hope for. The many friends I made through the years – you know who you are – add another rich layer to a blessed life. Of course, not everything has been sunshine and rainbows, but on balance, it would be wrong for me not to be exceedingly grateful for what a wonderful life racing has given me. Thank you, everyone, including the many fine associates with whom I worked at DRF. I am truly humbled. Going forward, everything else is gravy. I’ve gone to work as the agent for Joe Talamo, a remarkably talented and likable young man who is married to my niece Elizabeth. Our new working relationship is another intricate confluence of circumstance and serendipity, a powerful racing tale just begging for new chapters. Joe and I both have enough years in the game to know that disappointment is possible with the next hoofstep, but we’re both approaching this new venture with the wide-eyed optimism and renewed energy it deserves. Maybe, just maybe, in one of these years to come, Joe will ride in the Derby for Paul, wearing the lime and blue silks of our dear friend Samantha Siegel. And it won’t even matter what barn the horse walks out of. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.