Time for tradition...
The Mini's have a week of fall break each year. We established a tradition of a sleepover with them during this time. For the last three years, part of that tradition has been a visit to Keeneland. This is a very nice race track in Lexington for thoroughbred horses. There are two meets at Keeneland each year, a spring and a fall. The fall meet happens to be the month during which the Mini's have their fall break from school. Hayden's Boy Scout troop auctions off four tickets to Keeneland and Claude has bought them the last three years. This year we asked the Mini's if they wanted to still go to Keeneland before Claude placed his silent bid on the tickets. They both assured us it was tradition. So Claude kept his bid the highest and we supported the Boy Scout Troop for Hayden and created another memory opportunity for that tradition. We went to see Vince Gill at the Louisville Palace on Thursday night, then arranged to go to the Marx home after and spend the night. Everyone could sleep in a bit on Friday morning.
We woke up to some cat madness. It seems Bailey was given money to buy her lunch on the bus ride home from the state cross country meet the weekend before. She opted to use $3 of it to buy a Halloween sweater for their cats. We were entertained as Bailey made sure the cats tried out this new sweater. Raelyn loves to get mail or pictures so we opted to take a picture of the Mini's with Claude and me and their huge cats to send to Bailey. Bailey took the picture for Pip in the sweater enjoying a view of the back yard.
About noon we left to go to Keeneland. It was a cool day but the rain let up and it got a little warmer so we enjoyed a great afternoon outside.
When you enter Keeneland you walk past the paddocks where they walk the horses to warm them up for the next race. Bailey is taking a picture of a gray horse. She has a soft spot for every gray horse. She would bet on every gray horse that races simply because of its color. We have known several adults who bet on horses this same way.
Then we watched as they closed off the tunnel for the horses to walk from the paddocks through the tunnel to the race track for their race.
Bailey wanted us to find our seats before we had lunch so we located them. We sat in a different section this time. It was the last weekend of this meet and Keeneland was pretty well sold out. To get our four seats in a row Claude picked sitting behind the winners circle. Turned out to be excellent seats. I have made note of that in my Google Keep file so we can ask for these seats every time we go to Keeneland. When we got to the seats, they were putting the starting gate in place for the next race. We opted to sit and watch this race before getting lunch. The man plays a very long trumpet each time the horses come into the track area and then again when it is time for them to get into the gates. Claude got two good pictures of me, Bailey and Hayden enjoying the race and our excellent seats.
We wandered down one story and through the halls to the area from which we wanted to purchase our burgers. Food in hand, we made our way back to our seats to eat.
One of my favorite things to watch is the march of the John Deere tractors around the tract. They do this several times during the afternoon. This time there were five tractors and they staggered themselves as they drive around the entire track smoothing out the surface of the dirt. We enjoyed a race on turf. And before the afternoon was over for us, we watched a horse throw his jockey and take off around the track without a rider. He was running as though he were in a race by himself going the wrong direction. There is always a person on a lead horse and a rider on a horse taking up the rear that are there just to get the horses running that race onto the track and set the bounds of where the horses and jockeys can walk and warm up on the track before the race. Also, each jockey and horse has another horse and rider walking with them to be sure each race horse stays calm. As soon as our errant horse tossed his jockey and took off the wrong direction, two of these extra riders and their non-race horses were after him. They caught up to him at the end of the track and the race horse simply turned and ran back the way he came with these two riders in chase. By this time some of the other riders and non-race horses picked up on the catching process and managed to get the errant race horse at the opposite end of the track. They were able to walk him back to where the horses enter the race track for each race. This disqualifies the horse and jockey from their race. While very amusing and quite entertaining to watch all this transpire, it is sad for the horse, jockey and owner of the horse. A lot is put into getting a horse to the point of a race, that is gone when this happens. This is the second time Claude and I have watched a horse take off like that. The first time the jockey was not tossed off and was able to get the horse under control a lot quicker. The horse was still disqualified. The third picture is the errant horse being walked out of the track area.
Claude has been having back issues. He chose to stand a bit. I got this fun picture of Bailey getting her Grampa snuggles. This is what the afternoon is about. Love watching this moment in a granddaughters relationship with her Grampa.
We didn't stay for all the races. We left and headed to Crank and Boom for ice cream. Yum!!
The next morning, I got up early and went in to sit with Papa. The Mini's would sleep in late. After all it was their fall break. When I got home, I went downstairs where Bailey had made a nest for herself and was just stirring on the sofa after a good nights rest. I asked her if she was ready to come upstairs. Her reply, "The bed has accepted me as one of her kind and if I leave now it might reject me!" I sent this comment in a text to Andie and asked where in the world Bailey gets this stuff. Andie's comment, "Bwah hahaha! Her squirrel brain is powerful!" Oh my.
We took the Mini's to Fat Katz for pizza on the way back to La Grange. We enjoyed mini' pizzas of our own choosing and filled our happy bellies.
This was a very fun break with our Mini's. Love this tradition. As the Mini's grow older, who knows what will happen. But for this weekend, we kept the tradition and made some good memories.
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