Now, I know that normally the above sentence might cause some of you to place a call to Child Protective Services to report me, but before you do that, let me explain
A co-worker of mine recently invested in a horse named "GoinWest". Today he was running his third race ever at Bay Meadows, so he invited a number of us to come cheer him on. I thought it would be a great opportunity to let the girls see live horses close up.
I was half right.
Caroline had a great time. She climbed up on the fence rails and looked at all the horses, exclaiming, "Oh! Pretty horse!"
Katherine just cried. I think she was overwhelmed by the large size of an actual horse (as opposed to her stuffed animal horse, which is much smaller, and much more manageable!).
This photo sort of tells it all:
Checkin' Out the Horses Before the Race
(Click on photo for larger view)
Still, we had a great time. Our gracious host brought us into the "owners lounge" where there were free drinks including . . . free cups of ice! The girls were in heaven, since they love to play with ice.
They also got their first smell of cigarette smoke up close and personal, and I'm glad to say they proclaimed it, "Stinky!"
As for the race itself, it was bittersweet.
Goinwest finished third, which was a great finish for him.
However, the race he ran in was called a "claiming race" which in summary means someone else had a chance to buy him before the race. And someone did buy him! Bought him right away from my co-worker after his great race. I don't pretend to know a lot about horse racing (this was only my third time ever to a horse racing track), so the concept of a "claiming race" is not entirely clear to me, but if you want to know more, you can click here.
Here are some more shots of my friend's "pretty horse", as Caroline called him!
Goinwest before the race
(Click on photo for larger view)
Getting ready to race!
(Before we knew someone else bought him!)
(Click on photo for larger view)
