Erin Curley once thought the bright lights of Broadway were beckoning. Instead, she found a home beneath the iconic Twin Spires of Churchill Downs, where she has vast responsibilities as vice president of Kentucky Derby operations.

How vast?

Curley in the Churchill Downs paddock (Courtesy of Erin Curley)

“I have to manage every aspect of the guest experience,” she said, adding, “It’s something else. It’s a beast.”

Curley, 49, oversees 22 full-time employees. Her workforce balloons to approximately 1,600 at Derby time to meet security, parking, transportation, and hospitality needs of six-figure crowds. Last year’s Derby attracted 147,406 fans after 100,910 poured through the gates for the Kentucky Oaks the day before. Keep in mind that both crowds were held down by rain.

Curley and other Churchill Downs administrators feel immense pressure to see that the day goes beyond the “most exciting two minutes in sports” to provide fans with everything they seek from the experience.

“People expect a lot from the Derby. They’ve waited a long time to come here. They pay a lot for tickets,” Curley explained. “They expect that experience to be just out of this world.”

Curley, a native of Barberton, Ohio, grew up in Kentucky. Her family would attend Derby festival events and, like so many others, looked forward to gathering around the television on the first Saturday in May for a good time that never hinged on the race’s outcome.

Still, she never imagined she would play such an integral role in staging the run for the roses. Her interest was the stage, singing and dancing. She received a full scholarship from Northern Kentucky University to focus on musical theater performance and graduated from there in 1999 with a degree in theater management.

She soon realized that her dream did not match up with reality. She saw that talent alone did not always determine which actors received which parts. She thought she nailed certain auditions only to hear that she was too tall, too short, or perhaps had the wrong hair color for the role.

Curley, vice president of Kentucky Derby operations (Courtesy of Erin Curley)

“I thought I would go to New York, but then I realized I needed to eat,” Curley said. “I didn’t want to be a struggling performer going from paycheck to paycheck.”

She realized there were other avenues that fit her outgoing, driven personality and involved keeping people entertained.

“I found out that I had skills similar to what I was doing in musical theater that could really pay off for me, and that was visualizing an event and getting in there and building it from the ground up,” she said.

She was employed by the city of Chicago after her graduation from Northern Kentucky and   built from the ground up many successful concerts and festivals.

Greg Bush, vice president of mutuels and special projects, knew he struck gold when he interviewed Curley and quickly hired her a decade ago. “I saw a very talented young lady. She was a bundle of energy,” he recalled. “I just knew that whatever the role was that she undertook at Churchill Downs, she would be successful.”

She initially oversaw guest services and the events team. She readily admits she was not nearly as confident as Bush that everything would work out just fine.

“When I came here, I wasn’t sure there was going to be the growth opportunity that I wanted because when I came in, it was still very much a male-dominated industry,” she said. “Horsemen, in general, don’t like a lot of change. They are very traditional.

“So having somebody tell them about parking and transportation and access to the track, you’ve got to speak their language and show them you understand what they’re going through and understand what they need to get done, just as they understand your role at the track.”

Curley is unflappable in the face of pushback and is skilled at finding answers that meet everyone’s needs.

“She does a very good job of staying calm,” Bush said. “That’s one of the things I admire about her. She may be having an awful day and you’ll never know it.”

Curley also is a good listener. Bush recalled a meeting not long ago that was attended by approximately 40 people, almost all with pressing questions.

Erin Curley with husband, Dan (Courtesy of Erin Curley)

“They were firing one after another and she just stays calm and takes her notes and makes things happen,” Bush said.

In the end, Curley’s challenge is to make sure tens of thousands of fans relish every aspect of Derby day beyond the race itself. “There are so many different layers of the guest experience here,” she said. “You have people who are casual fans that are in the infield and you have to keep that intact. You have to maintain the experience of the Mansion folks and the Paddock Club and that’s different from someone sitting in a box seat.

“You’re curating and managing the guest experience on a multiple scale — where they can go, what they see, what they get to eat. It’s a lot to keep track of.”

Curley moves to a seven-days-a-week schedule in early February, buoyed by the love and support of Dan, her husband of 25 years, and Ethan, their 14-year-old son. The executive who once aspired to Broadway does everything possible to make sure the Derby is a hit.