Traditions both new, old emerge at Backside

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) - Walking around barn 30 at Churchill’s Backside, you might hear more than horses neighing.

On a good day, there’s nothing more that Backside Employee Sergio Navas likes doing more than singing.

“I love to sing, that’s kind of, makes my heart very happy,” Navas said.

Navas brings with him some of his culture, embedded in music from back home, and it’s appreciated by more than Navas’s coworkers.

“I sing a little bit and I see the horses heads come out. They hear me,” Navas said.

The vibrancy of cultures, many from Central America converge in tradition. Some of them brought from individual countries. Others converging and emerging at the Backside on their own.

That was obvious after watching a video celebrating another employee, Alex Garzaro’s birthday. The video showed Garzaro’s coworkers taking turns dumping buckets of water on him. The buckets were all lined up in a row, filled to the top.

“I have 12 buckets,” Garzaro said. “Sometimes it’s really cold, sometimes it’s warm.” The water dumped on him was not warm, he laughed.

The birthday soaking is something Backside employees look forward to, unless it’s their own birthday. The employees get a kick planning who will be next.

“In this month, I think we have six people’s birthdays,” Garzaro smiled.