Derby Dream Comes True, In Bittersweet Fashion

Not every GI Kentucky Derby dream involves winning America's most famous horse race. And even when long-shot Derby dreams do manage to defy the odds and come true, those hopes and aspirations can sometimes play out in serendipitous, bittersweet fashion.

Ever since the mid-2000s, Ryan and Kim McDaniel of St. Louis County, MO, shared a vision—a fantasy, almost—of stepping away from their day jobs to start a family-run business. Lots of married couples share the dream of being their own bosses. Few attempt it though, especially with three small children.

Ryan, a meticulous woodworker, longed to try something other than the daily grind of his construction trade. Ideally, he would handcraft some sort of custom, artisanal product he could be proud of. Kim, his wife, knew she could sell it. She worked a marketing gig, had a master's degree in business administration, and an entrepreneurial spirit.

“We had always dreamed of owning our own business,” Kim explained in a Monday phone interview. “We knew that was something we always wanted to pursue together. We were always trying to come up with that one idea that would make our plan work.”

Ryan and Kim shared other passions and beliefs. They were casual Thoroughbred fans who liked to take in the occasional night of racing at nearby Fairmount Park. And they were emphatic about wanting their kids to grow up with more socially engaging entertainment than peering at smart phones or being absorbed in video games.

One night in 2008, after a family dinner at Ryan's mom's house, someone got out an old relic of a horse racing board game. If you grew up a generation or two ago, you know the type, because they were once quite common: You pick a colored plastic horse, roll some dice, and slide your mount around a cardboard cutout of a track. First across the finish line wins.

“We played the game and everybody had a lot of fun,” Kim recalled. “Ryan enjoyed the interaction, but he didn't like the way the game played or the way it looked. He thought he could do better. So he started tinkering around in our garage and designed his own horse racing board game.”

Using his woodworking skills—there was no way his version was going to be flimsy cardboard—Ryan worked up a few prototypes and gave them to friends and family members for feedback. He expanded the game play to include both odds-based dice rolls and actions that were dependent on draws from a deck of cards, adding variations while keeping the basic concept simple. But he spent the most amount of time tweaking the game board itself.

Kim described Ryan as a perfectionist, and it showed in his finished products. Eventually, as the designs evolved, they settled on a maple veneer game board with an environmentally friendly, water-based acrylic finish. The stylized horse pieces get anchored in grooved metal eyelets as they race toward the finish, and the hardwood set carries considerable heft, clocking in at eight pounds.

Ambitiously, Kim urged Ryan to make 50 of the games. She wanted to take them to a local craft fair to see if she could drum up any interest. Skeptically, Ryan agreed.

“We sold every single one,” Kim recounted, beaming at the memory.

Once they knew they had a market, the McDaniels invested in additional tools and equipment for a garage-based production center. While Ryan cranked out game sets, Kim designed a website and built a customer base.

“We just did it on the side for fun money,” Kim said. “We felt passionate about wanting to create something that didn't require any batteries or need to be plugged into the wall. We wanted something like when we were growing up, when families would sit around the kitchen table and have game night and have conversations with one another instead of everybody sitting around staring at their electronic devices or watching TV.”

The couple rolled out a half-dozen or so other simple board games, like baseball and hockey, and reinvented old classics, like Chinese Checkers. They tapped into what proved to be an astonishingly receptive niche, fusing nostalgia with high-quality craftsmanship. With a nod to the horse racing game that started it all, they named the company Across the Board, and soon forged wholesale agreements with national toy catalogue companies and local specialty stores while selling games directly to consumers via www.acrosstheboardgame.com.

“Then business really started picking up,” Kim said. “So in 2012, we decided to take a leap of faith and go for this full time. It was just the two of us running the business.”

They leased a larger workshop in nearby Crestwood with enough space to handle production, packaging, and order fulfillment for thousands of games annually. Kim wanted to pursue licensing agreements with sports teams so they could popularize the games by featuring team logos. Ryan and Kim had made annual trips to Fairmount to watch the Derby simulcast, and they both agreed that their rather generic-sounding “Horse Racing Game” would be better off rebranded as “The Official Board Game of the Kentucky Derby” if they could get Churchill Downs to agree to the licensing.

By September 2013, the couple was putting in long hours in preparation for the holiday sales rush. Ryan had developed a small lump on his abdomen, but didn't give it much thought. He had no symptoms of illness, and believed he had developed a hernia from lifting and stacking the planks that he shaped into game boards.

When Ryan went to get the lump checked out a few weeks later, doctors gravely informed him he had stage 4 colon cancer. By the time of the diagnosis, it had already spread to his liver.

The family went into triage mode. Ryan underwent chemotherapy every two weeks, 31 treatments in all, and had to endure an emergency surgery to remove a blockage. The game business might have become an afterthought were it not for the generous assistance offered by friends and extended family members.

“They would show up at the workshop every day and help us get the games together and keep our business alive,” Kim recalled. “Ryan came to work almost every single day, but he wasn't quite able to do what he was able to do before. Everybody stepped in and helped us out. If it wasn't for them, we probably would have had to close the doors. It kept us going.”

By January 2015, the chemo treatments had ceased to be effective. One of Ryan's final design changes to the game was to make it an oval shape, more like a traditional racecourse layout. He left open spots on the turns and in the center of the board in case Kim could ever secure the licensing agreement to display the Derby logos.

Ryan McDaniel, 44, died on May 28, 2015.

“When he passed away, I just wanted to pursue his dreams, and see if I could make it the way he had imagined it to be,” Kim explained, trying hard not to let her voice crack with emotion.

After doing her best to stabilize family life for her children (now aged 12, 10 and 4) in the months after Ryan's death, Kim decided to start off 2016 by making a pilgrimage to the annual Sports Licensing and Tailgate Show in Las Vegas, the premier event for brand licensors, licensees and retailers. There, in late January, she met with Churchill's brand representatives. Kim told the story of her company and its horse racing game, but did not disclose the details of Ryan's illness or his passing. She wanted the game to stand on its own merit.

“They were excited about it,” Kim said. “They thought it was unique. They thought it was high quality. They thought it really went well with their brand. They liked it immediately.”

Kim didn't expect a quick answer, though. She was well aware that corporate entities often drag our responses on licensing matters.

“I was concerned about that,” she said. “We really wanted to have it for this year's race.”

Several weeks later, she got a pleasant surprise: Churchill said yes to the Derby licensing deal. In addition to giving blessing to the name usage, Churchill agreed to sell the game in its track gift shop and in the Kentucky Derby Museum.

Across the Board's five employees have gone into production overdrive trying to get as many games as possible ready before the May 7 Derby. These days the game boards are cut by a computer-guided router but still finished by hand. A brother-in-law, Bill Wilson, who helped keep the company operational during Ryan's illness, is now a business partner. Unbeknownst to Kim, he added a small tribute to Ryan on the new game packaging: Ryan's initials, RMM, will grace the top of every Kentucky Derby game box.

Unlike the past few seasons, Kim won't be at Fairmount Park for the Derby simulcast this year. Instead, she'll be at Churchill Downs to witness her first Derby in person.

“It was another 'bucket list' item for us, so I'm going to go,” she said.

“It's very bittersweet, and carrying on with the business is just something that I am committed to doing,” Kim said. “This was Ryan's dream. For his sake and for his children's sake, I just want to see it through and make sure it's something that he would be proud of. He was very talented and very committed. Although it's probably the hardest thing I've ever done, I owe this to him.”