And they're off...

Ah horse racing.  This past weekend BigBro, Seattle SIL and S all took off to watch the ponies. S and I were interested in practicing "motion" shots for photography more than betting on the horses.

Have I ever told you about how bad my gambling karma is?

Back in 1999 or 2000, I can't really remember, Mr. Not So Newlywed, Blueberry and I headed to Las Vegas to meet up with some friends of mine.  I knew there'd be gambling and I knew I'd most likely leave Vegas a loser.

One of the nights we headed to old Vegas and spent the evening sipping free drinks and playing nickle slots. Not a huge amount of payout there, but it entertained us for a bit. We set out into different directions.  It wasn't long before my $20 was gone. So I was bored.  I found Blueberry and Mr. Not So Newlywed sitting about two seats apart on the other side of the casino.  Both had HUGE buckets of nickles. 

I plopped down between them and Blueberry handed me a handful of nickles.  Slowly but surely, Mr. Not So Newlywed and Blueberry started losing.  They hadn't won a single nickle since I sat down.  Blueberry turned to me and ever so politely said, "Leave!"

The next day Mr. Not So Newlywed was determined to help me win. So we found a roulette table.  He explained that if I put money on the red or black I'd surely win.

The roulette ball landed on the green line, which means nobody's a winner.

So suffice it to say, I don't gamble. 

Back to the horse races.

It turns out that shooting horses, jockey's and all things horse racing is a lot harder than I thought.

The jockey's are little, teeny, tiny people.  They had a stat in the program that showed how much the horse would be carrying, with the jockey on it. Some were as low as 112lbs.  My left leg weighs more than 112 lbs.

Oh but these horses were beautiful.  Tall, strong, and very lean. Not like the horses we had out on the farm. All the horses were just beautiful.

And curious.

And they're off.  For some of the spunky horses it takes a couple of tries to get them in the gates and get their heads forward. But man, when that gate opens, they shoot out of there.

Every horse race started with the same, familiar trumpet song.

I just loved these guys. I wanted to bring them home with me.  Surely Pookie wouldn't mind. The landlords may though.

This one was interesting to me. Curly mane. I over heard the trainer say something to a bystander like me that they braided the horses mane. Clever. 

So all in all we had a good time. BigBro wagered some money. Won some and lost some. The bets were small which meant any winnings were also small.  Not sure I have a need to go back to Emerald Downs anytime soon, but it was at least entertaining for a day.

Sadly, P-Dot got left at home and so couldn't frolic with the horses.