Handwritten letter from Hunter S. Thompson to jockey Mike Manganello, sent immediately following Manganello's upset victory aboard Dust Commander at the 1970 Kentucky Derby—the very race Thompson immortalized in his groundbreaking article "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved," which launched the gonzo journalism movement .
Written on distinctive blue Sports Illustrated folder paper. Thompson congratulates Manganello on his unlikely triumph at Churchill Downs on May 2, 1970, when Dust Commander (15-1 odds) staged a dramatic come-from-behind victory .
This letter represents a remarkable convergence: Thompson, the Louisville native observing the Derby's human debauchery for Scanlan's Monthly, reaching out to the Connecticut-born jockey who made history as the only Connecticut-born rider ever to win the Run for the Roses . A rare piece of gonzo-era correspondence linking the journalist to the athlete at the center of the story that defined a genre.