All the pretty little horses

We were lucky enough to go the Preakness on Saturday (thank you, thank you Chris!), and lucky enough not to have to sit in the infield. I've never been to the Preakness before, I've never been to a horse race before, and it was definitely an interesting event.

The day started off with rain that eventually stopped before we actually got to the track. But, the high for the day was set to reach 60. It was a little nippy. Overall it really didn't affect our day, but the souvenir folks didn't sell nearly as many t-shirts and Black-eyed Susans(the cold drink, not the flower) as they would've liked. On the other hand the sweatshirts, and berets (yes, like the ones at the olympics) sold like hotcakes.

Andy told me before we left that I should wear a "sun bonnet." I looked out the window at the clouds and just laughed. He said all the women wore sun bonnets, and got them all decked out with flowers too. I thought he was kidding. So what's the first thing I see when we get to the track? Damned if the women aren't wearing big straw hats, with fake Black-eyed Susans in them. There were even some creative folks that had made hats to look like horses, with ears, big googly eyes in the front, fake flowers for the mane down the back and had their hair in ponytails to look like...well...ponytails. They were with a man who was wearing a crown. We couldn't decide if he was supposed to be the king of the Houyhnhnhms, or if he was trying to make a reference to the triple crown.

So one of the truly amazing parts of the day was just exactly how bad I am at picking horses. Andy managed to win us back $15, I managed to lose us about $6.
We watched about 8 races before the actual Preakness Stakes, and in between go inside to buy junk food, use the restroom, placing a bet, and actually sitting to watch the races, I got to see quite a bit of humanity.

The infield was a giant college party, at least that's what it looked like through the binoculars. Shoulder to shoulder people, a 98Rock tent, souvenirs, beer tents, beachballs flying though the air, and about as many port-a-potties as you could possibly imagine. When the beachballs popped, the toilet paper from the port-a-potties made the rounds.

With us up in the bleachers, the party was slightly different, but there were still the silly drunks. Like the woman who decided her pretzel and mustard would look good on my jacket. And whose husband apologized to me about 8 times and then turned to his wife and said "Well, at least they didn't curse us out...if it'd been me I would've been swearing at you left and right." Then 10 minutes later he tapped me on the shoulder and asked "You don't hate us do you?" I didn't even know these people...how could I hate them for something that was obviously an accident? Maybe they thought I would sue for emotional distress.

The sun came out just in time for the Preakness race and I placed my bet on Number 12, Proud Citizen, to win. Andy tried to convince me to place a bet on him just "to show" because he didn't think he would win. I was stubborn though and stuck to it. Then the race got started and we watched as Number 11 took off flying and the pretzel woman behind me screamed her head off for Number 11 to "MOVE!" Then as they went around the backside of the track Number 12 started to make his move. As they came back around to the front Number 12 had pushed into the lead and I was the one screaming my head off between telling Number 12 to "MOVE!" and poking Andy saying "See! See!" Of course if you watched the race, or have seen the results , you'll know that not only did Proud Citizen not win, he got beat out of second by a complete unknown, Number 2, Magic Weisner. And War Emblem came in first, putting him in a good position to win the Triple Crown.

So if I'd listened to Andy and bet to show instead of to win, I would've come away $15 richer. If we get to go next year, I'll definitely listen to Andy a little more, and I'll bring my straw hat.