A Week of Horses

If you know me, you know that my life pretty much revolves around horses. Without television, I can't really focus on the other sports I follow this time of year and hockey is on a hiatus so it just gives me more time to work on this (possibly unhealthy) obsession.

This was fast tracked last week when my life literally 100% revolved around horses.

It all started when I got my media pass for the Arlington Million but it just grew from there. The day before Aug. 17's Million brought an invite from a friend to go to a show jumping grand prix. 

I've watched show jumping a few time since I've been here and even watched some jumping classes at the North American Junior & Young Riders Championships but I've never been able to really give a grand prix my full attention so I was excited to hit up the show. Of course, I had my camera with me so I tried my hand at photographing the class and to my surprise, I didn't do too badly. I took a ton of photos (most that I haven't edited yet) but to keep my sanity and yours for this post, I'll just post two of them.

My first attempt of the class

Love the fountain in the background in this one

I was a bit stupid going to the Grand Prix from a sleeping standpoint as I had to be up at 4:45 the next morning to head to Chicago. Most people are smart enough to drive six hours (one way) the day before but not my carmate and I. We decided that a 12+ hour trip with eight hours of racing was a great idea. That thought turned out to be true.

I was given a photo pass for the day, so not only did I get to hang out in the cool press box (this door was the entrance, I'm still in love with this photo) but I also got to go right up to the rail on the turf course.

If you know me (or have paid attention to some of my blog posts), I LOVE turf racing. Even more so, I love European racing. One of my big goals in life (one of many) is to find a job that lets me go over and cover the Euros for their big race meets but Arlington Park's International Festival is about as close as I'm going to get for the time being.

Some of my favorite European jockeys came over for the big races so I did fangirl at times. Especially when I returned to the press box after my day of racing to upload my photos and found this photo.

I didn't know much about Dandino before the American St Ledger other than he was a nice horse. I had watched him online but often you don't get the best of quality so I didn't know exactly how nice looking he was. He is my newest racing horse crush, because this is one hot horse. His jockey Ryan Moore is also one of my favorites and has ridden some of my favorite horses both on American and foreign soil so to be that close to him while he was riding a race was a surreal experience.

But even more cool was to see one of the jockeys that I've watched grow up ride in the Arlington Million. I've watched Joseph O'Brien ride since his first year as a "real" jockey as a 16-year-old in Ireland and he was the jockey that won the Breeders' Cup Turf (one of my favorite Breeders' Cup races) the year I covered the race so his success has a special place in my heart. He was also the regular rider of St. Nicholas Abbey and Camelot, both of them my favorites of this generation so it's safe to say that as far as racing goes, he's an important person to me. In fact, when I was told he was riding in the Million about three weeks before the event, it convinced me that I needed to figure out a way to get there. 

I watch Joey ride at least once a week on TwinSpires because he rides some of the best horses in Europe, but even though he was in the U.S. for BC 2012, I haven't seen him ride in person since 2011. He was on Mull of Killough who is a half-brother to, in my opinion, one of the most underrated turf milers of all time in Excelebration. Excelebration only won three one-mile G1s in his career, but he also had to face a monster in Frankel. He was most definitely born in the wrong year.

Joey and Mull of Killough in the paddock

The pair finished eighth in the race but there was a bunch of excitement when South African invader The Apache and U.S.-bred Real Solution went head-to-head in the stretch. Technically The Apache won but he was disqualified to second when it was shown on the head-on view that he bumped Real Solution multiple times in the stretch.

The Apache led at the wire but Real Solution was awarded the win.

Since I was writing the recap for work, I went to the press tent for the winner's interview as soon as the trophy presentation was done and got this picture of Mr. Ramsey. He won three G1s that day and had the same expression on his face that many of us were feeling after an awesome day.

The Million was the final race of the day that we really paid attention to but we didn't get out of the track until after 9:45 p.m. central time. The track was obviously dead when we left and I got this cool shot as we were headed out to the parking lot.

If you are looking for a track to visit in the midwest, I highly recommend Arlington Park. It is on the top of my favorite tracks list and I didn't think Keeneland could be topped when it comes to North American tracks.

We didn't get home until about 5:30 the next morning and because I was jazzed, I stopped by Keeneland to see if anyone was on the main track. Surprisingly, there wasn't, which was probably good for my sanity because I would have stayed and watched and I had to get some sleep before work.

Keeneland Sunday morning

My no racehorse timeline didn't last long as I had to be up bright and early Monday morning to go to Adena Springs to visit a few stallions. I do a "Catching Up With" series for America's Best Racing and it was time for Awesome Again so I went out and saw him, his son Ghostzapper, and Alphabet Soup, who I did a story on a few weeks ago. If you've never been to Adena Springs, I recommend it because it is beautiful and the safe is amazingly nice!

Thursday was probably my favorite part of the week outside of Arlington. I finally got to visit the famed Calumet Farm, which has been on my Kentucky bucket list for a LONG time. To top it off, my favorite racehorse of all time, and the horse that got me into the sport, Point Given just finished his first season there so I got to visit my old pal. I was lucky to spend a lot of time with him at Three Chimneys and he may not have remembered how much attention I gave him, but he sure remembered our routine of him getting mints every time I'm around. It's always nice when a high profile racehorse remembers you, even if it's just for food, haha.

My obsession inducing week continued on Friday and Saturday when I again went to the Horse Park, this time for polo. Seeing a polo game has been on my bucket list for a long time so when we saw that there was a game being played after the jumping classes we were watching were done, we stopped by to watch the end of the game. Let me just say that I am hooked, I can't wait until we find another game to go to.

We hit up The Red Mile on Saturday night for my first live harness racing experience, which was interesting to say the least. It was a lot different than a Thoroughbred track so that took some getting used to but it is an entertaining thing to watch once you sit down and pay attention for a bit.

And finally, to end my horse crazy week, I received these photos from my dad today. He's currently prepping my horses for our road trip in a month and a half and started working on getting them to go in and out of the trailer again today.

Crystal wouldn't get in for a trip to the vet a few weeks ago and refused to get in until my dad stepped out for a second to grab something. When he got out, she got in.

Vegas decided to take an hour to load (her last trailing experience was the trip back from Texas so I don't blame her too much) but Dad reported that once she was in, she wouldn't get out. She's blonde like that.

I hope you enjoyed my very long, photo heavy blog. It was an exciting week with some experiences that made me start to plot out a new path for my goals so we'll see how that goes. I'll keep you updated on that side of my life as well, as soon as there are any updates.

Until next time,
Mel