Groomer’s Slaying a Kentucky Derby Whodunit at LinesMaker

LOUISVILLE (HORSE RACING/Barrouquere) The bour­bon had been stashed away and the hats returned to clos­ets by the time some­one found a groomer’s body inside a barn at Churchill Downs, hours after the run­ning of America’s most famous horse race.

Other work­ers on the back­side of the track – a dif­fer­ent world from the pageantry seen on race day – were left to won­der if a killer was among them: Why did some­one want 48-year-old Adan Fabian Perez dead? How was the Guatemala native killed? And why did his killer leave him in a barn, a few sta­bles away from where I’ll Have Another would bask in the glory of win­ning the Ken­tucky Derby?

Author­i­ties have no sus­pects. An autopsy was done, but the coro­ner refused to release the results.

“Every­body wants to catch the guy who did that,” said Faustino Aguilar, a 29-year-old exer­cise rider with six years of expe­ri­ence at the track. “They do it once, they may do it more.”

Jo-Ann Farmer, chief deputy coro­ner in Louisville, said an autopsy revealed injuries on a body found in a barn at Churchill Downs at about 4:50 a.m. EDT Sun­day, roughly 10 hours after the race. Farmer refused to release more details, say­ing she was with­hold­ing infor­ma­tion pend­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion into the death.

The Ken­tucky Derby is known for styl­ish hats, lots of bets, mint juleps and wild par­ties. But sep­a­rated from the cheer­ing fans by the dirt sur­face and the infield, the back­side is a maze of green-roofed barns, horse stalls, thor­ough­breds, bales of hay and about 200 mostly His­panic peo­ple who live at Churchill Downs at any given time – either in dor­mi­to­ries on the edge of the prop­erty or in small apart­ments above some of the barns them­selves. Police said Perez lived in quar­ters on the track.

A fence topped with razor wire sep­a­rates the back­side from a working-class neigh­bor­hood that sur­rounds the his­toric race­track. On Mon­day, track secu­rity kept vis­i­tors with­out cre­den­tials out­side the fence. But track work­ers wan­dered in and out, smok­ing cig­a­rettes, talk­ing on cell­phones, and pick­ing up lunch and gear from their cars.

Laura Belzia, a 38-year-old “hot walker” who’s walked horses to cool them down after work­outs for five years, said the back­side of the track can some­times be a rough place after the work is done and the lights go out. Belzia described occa­sional fights, but almost never fatal violence.

Belzia said some of her co-workers may be reluc­tant to talk to police, either out of fear of the per­son who com­mit­ted the crime or because they are in the coun­try illegally.

“Nobody is going to tell what hap­pened,” Belzia told The Asso­ci­ated Press. “Some­times peo­ple here … get scared and quit talking.”

Offi­cer Carey Klain, a police spokes­woman, and John Asher, a spokesman for Churchill Downs, said they didn’t know Perez’s immi­gra­tion status.

Louisville Police Lt. Barry Wilk­er­son said the death appears to have noth­ing to do with the Ken­tucky Derby, but may be related to one of sev­eral fights reported that night.

“Was he (Perez) involved?” Wilk­er­son asked Mon­day. “We’re not sure and that’s why we’re try­ing to get indi­vid­u­als who saw the alter­ca­tion or know what hap­pened to get them to speak to us to find if he was involved or not.”

Perez was a licensed groomer at Churchill Downs for trainer Cecil Borel, the brother of three-time Ken­tucky Derby win­ning jockey Calvin Borel.

“He (Perez) was a hard­work­ing man who took pride in his job and the horses and has no ene­mies that we are aware of,” the Borel fam­ily said in a statement.

By Sun­day after­noon, I’ll Have Another’s own­ers were par­tak­ing in the post-Derby rit­ual of inter­views and photo shoots and talk­ing about rac­ing the 3-year-old at the Preak­ness Stakes in Mary­land. On Mon­day, the hoopla had faded, as trucks and horse trail­ers bear­ing license plates from Ken­tucky, Arkansas, Louisiana, New York and Illi­nois passed through the gates. Employ­ees fin­ished their morn­ing shifts giv­ing horses their workouts.

Car­los Gomez, a 28-year-old exer­cise rider, said work­ers were talk­ing about Perez’s death, but it wasn’t dis­rupt­ing their work with the horses.

“Nobody knows what hap­pened,” Gomez said.

Fer­nando Espinoza, a 27-year-old exer­cise rider for three years at the track, cleaned mud out from his Ford Explorer in a park­ing lot across from the back­side Mon­day morn­ing. Perez’s death, Espinoza said, didn’t stop the work­ers from going about their jobs – arriv­ing at 5 a.m., feed­ing and walk­ing the horses and ready­ing them for workouts.

“It’s a good job. I like horses,” said Espinoza, who wore a pur­ple “Stay Thirsty” cap from the 2011 Ken­tucky Derby. “It’s nor­mal now.”